“Misunderstanding Terrorism”: How the Us vs. Them Mentality Will Never Stop Attacks

Finding and stopping terrorists before they strike is often compared to looking for a needle in a haystack, a cliché that speaks to the difficulty of preventing a crime that, while deadly, is uncommon. Counterterrorism officials still suggest that the task would become easier if they could use profiling to target Muslim communities. In other words, if they could shrink the size of the haystack.

But a new book by Dr. Marc Sageman, a veteran counterterrorism researcher and former CIA operations officer, argues that this approach, even if carried to its fullest extension in a nightmare scenario for civil liberties, would still be ineffective, because jihadist terrorism is such a statistically rare phenomenon.

In his book “Misunderstanding Terrorism,” Sageman counts 66 Islamic jihadist terrorist plots in Western countries between 2002 and 2012, involving a total of 220 perpetrators. This figure works out to an average of 22 terrorists per year, across a population of roughly 700 million people. Even narrowed to just the Muslim population in Western countries, estimated at roughly 25 million people, that’s less than one in 1 million Muslims a year who could be considered terrorists.

Describing a hypothetical dragnet conducted by Western countries that correctly identified terrorists 99 percent of the time, but accused innocent people 1 percent of the time, Sageman asks us to imagine the following:

If all the various police departments operating in the West collaborate and carry out a gigantic sweep by applying this profile to their respective Muslim populations in order to catch terrorists hiding in their respective societies, they would arrest all 22 terrorists that emerge in a given year. However, they would make a mistake 1 percent of the time for 25 million people, which comes to 250,000 people. Therefore, in order to catch all 22 global neo-jihadi terrorists, they would put 250,000 Muslims in jail by mistake.

Because terrorism is so uncommon, he writes, any strategy for combating it that involves policing entire communities is likely to end up harming huge numbers of innocent people — thus feeding the same climate of alienation and hostility that fosters political violence in the first place.

In the 1980s, Sageman helped organize Afghan resistance fighters against the Soviet Union. Over the decades since, he has interviewed hundreds of individuals accused of involvement in jihadist terrorism, documenting the circumstances of their cases and their personal motivations.

“Misunderstanding Terrorism” by Marc Sageman

“Misunderstanding Terrorism” analyzes every jihadist terrorist plot that occurred in the United States and Europe over a 10-year period ending in 2012. The study excludes nonviolent terror-related cases, such as those involving financial donations or other material support charges, as well as sting operations in which plots were developed by agent provocateurs — a tactic favored by U.S. law enforcement agencies but viewed with skepticism in many European countries. His research comes to two broad conclusions. The first is that violent terrorist plots in Western countries are a statistically tiny phenomenon, which makes blanket counterterrorism approaches an ill-suited response. The second takeaway is that “social identity theory” — that is, how people self-identify in a crisis — is the primary motivating factor behind terrorist attacks.

Despite efforts to protect civil liberties, Sageman writes that profiling-based approaches have led the United States to “grossly overestimate the violent terrorist threat and commit a very large number of assessment errors.” The politically driven manipulation of the threat of terrorism has led Americans to “fibrillate in fear and bankrupt [themselves] with security” in response to a threat that is much smaller than they have been led to believe.

But why does the threat of terrorism resonate so much more in the popular imagination than other dangers? Sageman argues that identity politics influence our response to violence, both for victims and for perpetrators. Most Americans perceive terrorism as something that comes from an “out-group” rather than from people with whom they identify. As a result, an attack creates a sense of solidarity, leading people to react emotively, in contrast to the oft-muted response to more common forms of violence. This identity-driven reaction to terrorist violence also causes people to overestimate how prevalent terrorism really is, making them willing to commit wildly disproportionate resources to fighting it.

Sixteen years after 9/11, the war on terror still appears to have no end in sight, driven on by a circular logic of violence and retribution. Under the Obama administration, the U.S. government tried to frame its counterterrorism programs as not specifically targeting Muslims, while still carrying out airstrikes overseas and launching controversial “countering violent extremism” programs in Muslim communities. Although in recent years some national security experts like Sageman have begun to point out the self-defeating nature of American counterterrorism policies, Donald Trump’s approach – focusing explicitly on Muslim communities, implementing discriminatory immigration policies, expanding military action abroad, and declaring an open-ended war against the amorphous concept of “radical Islam” – isn’t a course correction.

Sageman argues that identity politics are also what fundamentally drives the terrorists themselves. U.S. government policies can consciously or inadvertently fuel a sense of conflict between different groups, in this case Muslims and Westerners. (Several government studies have also pointed to politics as a driver of terrorism, finding U.S. foreign policy as the most frequently cited motivation.)

“All of us see the world through the prism of identity, so when we see an escalation of a conflict happening between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ it inevitably leads some people toward political violence,” Sageman told The Intercept in an interview. “Looking at it in terms of foreign policy, when the government attacks other countries, oftentimes people who have a link to that country or identify with the people there will start categorizing themselves alongside the victims of those attacks.”

By categorizing huge swaths of the global population as enemies or potential enemies, Trump is engaging in hostile posturing toward very large numbers of people who pose no threat to the United States. Meanwhile, the rising death tollfrom his military actions has the potential to be a force-multiplier for terrorist recruitment. Thanks to advances in information technology, the destructive effects of U.S. military actions are more easily recorded and disseminated than they were a few decades ago. As they escalate, these actions are likely to trigger an emotive “in-group” reaction among those people who perceive themselves as targeted, Sageman says. Likewise, terrorist attacks in Western countries will trigger an emotive “in-group” reaction among Americans, continuing the cycle.

In Sageman’s view, factors like ideological extremism and economic deprivation, sometimes cited as root causes of terrorist violence, are secondary to political identity.

He notes that the phenomenon of identity-based violence has been repeated in different cultural and religious contexts in American history – including by people most Americans would now consider part of the “in-group.” During the Mexican-American War of 1846, an entire battalion of Irish Catholics fighting in the U.S. Army defected to the Mexican side out of a sense of solidarity with the suffering of their Mexican co-religionists, and in protest of the discrimination then faced by Catholics in the United States. Although this episode is largely forgotten today in the U.S., its memory continues to linger for some in Mexico and Ireland.

Sageman believes that the only path to winding down our present conflict is to expand our own “in-group.” In the United States, Sageman said that would mean “bringing everybody into the fold and saying that we’re all Americans, equally, and not just focusing exclusively on one group and defining them as suspicious and not completely part of the fold.”

“Crafting a sense of national identity that includes people instead of driving them further apart is what a leader is supposed to do,” he added. “If we are unable to respond to real threats in a proportional and focused manner, and if we see continue to see this cumulative radicalization of discourse, we will end up with more political violence at home, not less.”

Top photo: Law enforcement officers secure the area where they allegedly arrested terror suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami following a shootout in Linden, New Jersey, on Sept. 19, 2016.

Wait! Before you go on about your day, ask yourself: How likely is it that the story you just read would have been produced by a different news outlet if The Intercept hadn’t done it?
Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. Who would hold party elites accountable to the values they proclaim to have? How many covert wars, miscarriages of justice, and dystopian technologies would remain hidden if our reporters weren’t on the beat?
The kind of reporting we do is essential to democracy, but it is not easy, cheap, or profitable. The Intercept is an independent nonprofit news outlet. We don’t have ads, so we depend on our members — 24,000 and counting — to help us hold the powerful to account. Joining is simple and doesn’t need to cost a lot: You can become a sustaining member for as little as $3 or $5 a month. That’s all it takes to support the journalism you rely on.Become a Member

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DocHollywood:
The Arab Opinion Index found that
“The United States in particular was also identified as the greatest single threat to collective Arab security: 67% of Arabs named both the US or Israel as the country which posed the greatest threat to collective Arab security, and 10% of respondents designated Iran in this way.”

Swisscheese:
That statement is from the press report. It cannot be found in the survey report. The 67% value would not match with the numbers provided by the survey. Specially with this on page 5:

“With 32% of respondents in the AGGREGATE SAMPLE, Israel was the most cited threat to the national security of their home COUNTRIES. The second most-cited country was the United States, which 14% of Arabs viewed as the country posing the largest threat to their home COUNTRIES’ national security. Finally, 10% of Arab citizens view Iran as the country which poses the largest threat to their own COUNTRIES’ national security.”

DocHollywood:
Yes, that 67% is in the survey report. You can find it.

Mona:
Swisscheese is an idiot. He cannot do it.

Swisscheese:
Correct. I cannot find it, so tell us where it is.

DocHollywood:
It is on page 8. PAGE 8 OF THE PRESS REPORT!!!

Mona:
DocHollywood is smart!!

LOL LOL

For more than 24 hours DocHollywood has not been able to tell us where in the 2016 Arab Opinion Index Survey that 67% value is. He said it is in it and Mona claimed I am an idiot and I would never find it. This is a link to the survey report (NOT THE PRESS REPORT). Maybe any of you can find it and tell us about it.

You were wrong. Press reports are reports in the press written by press correspondents.

Did you imagine you were reading the New York Times at the 2016 Arab Opinion Index site?

I asked you to tell me where, and you linked me to the press report again

You’re still wrong.

LOL LOL LOL LOL – Swisscheese

. . .and a most impressive scholar.

A link to a news story at The Washington Post is a link to a press report. The link to what you erroneously call a “press report” is nothing of the sort; in fact, it’s by and from the same group as the one at your link.

Prove again how Swisscheese is an “idiot”. – Swisscheese

. . .these are the highlighted findings of the 2016 Arab Opinion Index.

Dude, you lost. And you lost miserably. Press reports are what the press releases. Correct. And sometimes IT IS EXACTLY WHAT THE ENTITY GIVES THE PRESS TO RELEASE. Now your homework as a “smart” commenter is to check what the press reported on that matter. You will notice it is the same thing provided by your link. Why? Because this is what they gave journalists at the press conference to report.

Your link title is:
“Findings from the 2016 Arab Opinion Index Announced”
This is the document they gave journalists to report on April 11, 2017 in Washington, DC. Their report to the press. Their press release. This is what the media reported. Hint (USnews)

My link:
“The 2016 Arab Opinion Index: Main Results in Brief”

This is the survey report. This is what you suppose to review, to analyze. They do not give this document to the press. You have to find it yourself and analyze it.

Even the website advises readers to review the “extensive” results on my link. You did not. You quickly used what they gave to the press and repeated it here.

Again, you lost miserably. You are making it worse by trying to save face. The problem with you guys is not the fact that you are wrong. Everybody can be wrong. It is your pathetic insistance that you are right even when confronted with mathematical evidence that proves that you are incorrect. You guys do live in an alternative universe.
Do not worry. You will still be “smart” according to Mona.

IT IS EXACTLY WHAT THE ENTITY GIVES THE PRESS TO RELEASE. – Swisscheese

You’re wrong again.

Press reports are prepared by the press, not released to them by the subjects of their reporting.

Face it: you screwed up. Badly.

My link:
“The 2016 Arab Opinion Index: Main Results in Brief”

This is the survey report. This is what you suppose to review, to analyze. They do not give this document to the press. You have to find it yourself and analyze it– Swisscheese

You failed there as well:

PS Basic Statistics: If 32% in the AGGREGATE sample (that means ALL THE COUNTRIES COLLECTIVELY) believe Israel is the greatest threat to their home COUNTRIES SECURITY and 14% believe the US is, then it would not make sense for 67% in the sample to believe that both the US or Israel as the country which poses the greatest threat COLLECTIVELY.– Swisscheese

What the report clearly shows is the a large majority of Arabs believe Israel and the US pose a threat to the collective (80% and 63 %, respectively) more than any other 2 countries. Your “analysis” is just garbage.

Dude, the fact that you cannot make the difference between those two documents:

“Findings from the 2016 Arab Opinion Index Announced” and

“The 2016 Arab Opinion Index: Main Results in Brief”

means you do live in your own universe in which you make Einstein looks like a fool.

The first document is what they released to the PRESS. PRESS CORRESPONDENTS from the Middle East Monitor REPORTED its contents on March 17, 2017, and PRESS CORRESPONDENT Devon Haynie from US News REPORTED its contents on April 11, 2017.

The second document is the SURVEY REPORT. That is what is not released to the press. This is the document you have to study to understand the survey.

Pardon me if I keep laughing at you, but you wrote this:

“Your “analysis” is just garbage.”

After you wrote this:
“the report clearly shows is the a large majority of Arabs believe Israel and the US pose a threat to the collective (80% and 63 %, respectively) more than any other 2 countries.”

Firstly it is 89% and 82% respectively. Secondly, this statement has nothing to do with the 67%.That means you are incapable of even understanding the basic explanation of the report you are citing.

Read the survey question:
Do the following countries pose a threat to the stability of
the Arab region?

and compare it to this question:
“Which countries posed the GREATEST threat to collective Arab security.”?

Are those two questions the same? Can you see the difference? Let me help:
Supposed you ask South Koreans:
“Do the following countries pose a threat to the stability of
the Korean Peninsula?” Russia? China? US? Japan? North Korea?

and then you ask them the following:
“Which countries posed the GREATEST threat to the North Korean peninsula”? Russia? China? US? Japan? North Korea?

If you cannot see the difference you really have a serious problem.

You are using the answer to the first question to justify the 67% after stating that the 67% is the answer to the second question.

You just repeat what you read without even understanding it. You can read the SURVEY REPORT all over again. Firstly, you will not find that 67%. Secondly, you can use all the charts, all the results you will not be able to calculate it because it does match 32% and 14%.

Again, you lost miserably, but don’t worry about it because Mona (who stated “most Palestinians want a one state solution” after looking at this: 44% support two state, 36% support one state, 20% unsure) will still believe that you are “smart”.

The Pentagon to the PRESS, to the public
The US Navy sent 38 missiles to Syria

Washington Post, AP, CNN
The US Navy sent 38 missiles to Syria

But sometimes a press release is completely different from a press report. What the White House releases to the Press about Trump’s meeting with the Russians is different from what WP releases.

You can babble incoherent words as much as you want. The fact that you cannot make the different between the two separate documents says a lot about yourself. Moreover, it is obvious you do not even understand what you are reading. You used the answer to a complete different question to answer another whose response does not match what you are looking for. You can spend the whole week babbling , but you will not find the 67% in the survey report and you will not be able to tell us how it was calculated with your all the data presented. Hence, you live in your own universe where Mona thinks you are “smart”.

PS when somebody makes a scientific statement like “67% believe…..”. Firstly, they should tell you in detail how they find that result. Secondly, if they do not, then they must give all the data for the readers to find the result themselves. Again, you can read the SURVEY REPORT 100 times you will not find the 67% and you will not be able to calculate it. But since you are “smart” you just take that value.

Why does anyone need to “find it and tell us about it” after you already found it and told us about it being on page 8 of the official seventeen page report produced by the Doha Institute’s Arab Center for Research & Policy Studies and a direct link to the report on the Doha Institute’s official website has already been provided?

The document you are referring is the press release:
“Findings from the 2016 Arab Opinion Index Announced”

The survey report is this:

“The 2016 Arab Opinion Index: Main Results in Brief”

Since you guys are incapable of fiding it in the survey report then you are attempting to prove yourselves that both documents are the same. This tactic certainly works in your universe, but not in the rational world.

He mislabeled a survey report from the Arab Center for Policy and Research Studies (ACPRS) a “press report:”

I told you the 67% is in the press report – Swisscheese

. . .and then proceeded to “analyze” their findings by conflating the responses to a survey question on individual home countries’ national security with one about collective Arab security:

“. . . The second most-cited country was the United States, which 14% of Arabs viewed as the country posing the largest threat to their home countries’ national security. . .According to the survey you linked, but did not review 14% of Arabs identified the US as the greatest single threat to collective Arab security[emphasis added] – Swisscheese.

. . .using the same source whose report he had just mislabeled:

PS Basic Statistics: If 32% in the AGGREGATE sample (that means ALL THE COUNTRIES COLLECTIVELY) believe Israel is the greatest threat to their home COUNTRIES SECURITY and 14% believe the US is, then it would not make sense for 67% in the sample to believe that both the US or Israel as the country which poses the greatest threat COLLECTIVELY.[emphasis added] – Swisscheese

. . .while providing his scholarly flourish:

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL – Swisscheese

But he wasn’t done yet.

He tried conflating the reports from the ACPRS with press reports:

The Pentagon to the PRESS, to the public
The US Navy sent 38 missiles to Syria

. . .dismissing the fact that CNN is a press organization but ACPRS is not by explaining:

In this case
Press Release = Press Report. – Swisscheese

. . .except when it doesn’t:

But sometimes a press release is completely different from a press report.– Swisscheese

Among his random offerings:

. . .you do live in your own universe in which you make Einstein looks like a fool. . .Supposed you ask South Koreans. . .Hence, you live in your own universe where Mona thinks you are “smart”. . . – Swisscheese

. . .he doubled down on his analysis by conflations:

Firstly, you will not find that 67%. Secondly, you can use all the charts, all the results you will not be able to calculate it because it does match 32% and 14%. . .– Swisscheese

Are you okay? It seems you are about to lose it. It is fine if you cannot find the 67% in the survey report. It is also okay you have absolutely no idea how it was calculated. Again, Mona will still think you are “smart”.

swisscheese is a grossly anti-Muslim bigot, deeply antagonistic to the findings of the Defense Science Board. Donald Rumsfeld, yes, wanted to know how to communicate with the Muslim world, and so asked for a study as to why we in the U.S. could not effectively do so.That’s Rumsfeld commissioned the study, to learn how to control terror — not to satisfy some free-floating intellectual curiosity.

The DSB told Rumsfeld:

American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies.

• Muslims do not “hate our freedom,” but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.

• Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.

• Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. U.S. actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self-determination. […]

• Finally, Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic — namely, that the war is all about us. As the Muslims see it, everything about the war is — for Americans — really no more than an extension of American domestic politics and its great game. This perception is of course necessarily heightened by election-year atmospherics, but nonetheless sustains their impression that when Americans talk to Muslims they are really just talking to themselves.

Thus the critical problem in American public diplomacy directed toward the Muslim World … is a fundamental problem of credibility. Simply, there is none — the United States today is without a working channel of communication to the world of Muslims and of Islam.

Rumsfeld was in the forefront of the then-new, “Global War on Terror.” Terrorism isn’t going to be significantly controlled and ended while the above-articulated U.S. crimes and vicious behavior continue.

swisscheese, Craig Summers, and all the other neoliberal and/or rightwing hacks can rant all they like, but the truth is right there in the DSB findings. Terrorism against Westerners is the result of rage over Western behavior. Only a moron can’t see how that leads to a small, tiny fraction of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world turning to terror against a West that oppresses and kills Muslims.

“Donald Rumsfeld commissioned it to determine what is causing the 1.6 Muslims in the world to be so angry with Americans; what drives specifically attacks on Americans.” Mona

Lie # 2:
“That’s Rumsfeld commissioned the study, to learn how to control terror” Mona

Again rational readers. Please read the report yourself. Rumsfeld did not commission the DSB to “determine what drives attacks on Americans or to learn how to control terror”. MONA IS LYING.

Readers can find the mandate of the DSB on the introduction and their objectives on page 9 of the report. These were their objectives:
1) What are the consequences of changes in the strategic communication environment?
(2) What Presidential direction and strategic communication means are required?
(3) What should be done about public diplomacy and open military information operations?

Lie # 3.
“The report in 2004 concluded this; this is what it said. It said : “The key cause of terrorism aimed at Americans is quote “American direct intervention in the Muslim world”

That is a blatant lie. Mona and Greenwald expect readers to either be illiterate or too lazy to read the report themselves.

THE REPORT DID NOT CONCLUDE WHAT THE CAUSES OF TERRORISM AGAINST THE US WERE.

Mona and Greenwald keep quoting page 40 of the report as the “conclusion” of the report. That is false. This is not what the report concluded. On page 40, the report gives the reasons why America’s struggles to gain “hearts and minds” IN TERMS OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION have failed (page 39).

You are very good in calling names, but you cannot change facts. Calling me “bigot” does not change the facts. You are lying.

BTW. Where in the Arab Opinion Index it states that “67% of Arabs named both the US or Israel as the country which posed the greatest threat to collective Arab security “?

Remember Doc said it is in the report and I needed to find it. You claimed Doc is smart and I am an “idiot” so I will never find it. I cannot find it and I conclude that number would not make sense in that report. So why you and Doc are taking so long to tell everybody where that statement is in the report? Please do not let us wait too long.

Doc! I know you to be reasonable man, rooted in fact. What on earth causes you to say, contrary to a great deal of contrary evidence, that swisschees can, in fact, “do it?” – Mona

Humor

He was handed another chance to make a fool of himself, and he didn’t disappoint:

PS Basic Statistics: If 32% in the AGGREGATE sample (that means ALL THE COUNTRIES COLLECTIVELY) believe Israel is the greatest threat to their home COUNTRIES SECURITY and 14% believe the US is, then it would not make sense for 67% in the sample to believe that both the US or Israel as the country which poses the greatest threat COLLECTIVELY. – Swisscheese

He’s hopelessly confusing the aggregate of perceived individual threats with those perceiving a threat to the collective, and yet he wants to sermonize on “basic statistics.”

“The United States in particular was also identified as the greatest single threat to collective Arab security: 67% of Arabs named both the US or Israel as the country which posed the greatest threat to collective Arab security, and 10% of respondents designated Iran in this way.”

YOU LINKED THE PRESS REPORT AGAIN. This is the title of what you linked:
“Findings from the 2016 Arab Opinion Index Announced”
That is what they released to the press: PRESS REPORT.
Remember what I wrote:
Swisscheese:

Press report:
“67% of Arabs named both the US or Israel as the country which posed the greatest threat to collective Arab security, and 10% of respondents designated Iran in this way.”

but survey report page 5:
“when asked to name the country which posed the single largest threat to their home countries’ national security. With 32% of respondents in the aggregate sample, Israel was the most cited threat to the national security of their home countries. The second most-cited country was the United States, which
14% of Arabs viewed as the country posing the largest threat to their home countries’ national security. Finally, 10% of Arab citizens view Iran as the country which poses the largest threat to their own countries’ national security.”

That is why the report you linked is 17 pages while the SURVEY REPORT is 34 pages!!!

If you want to see the extensive data and the analysis you have to the same website you linked us and then go to the bottom page where you will see this:

” For more extensive findings, “click here”. Live coverage of the press conference was available our English and Arabic Twitter accounts.”

OMG!!
I told you the 67% is in the press report, but not in the survey report. You told me it is in the survey. I asked you to tell me where, and you linked me to the press report again. LOL LOL LOL LOL

For rational readers: this is the extensive findings of the 2016 Arab Opinion Index.

On April 13, 2016 Murtaza Hussain wrote an article about a survey that concluded that 93% of Young Iraqis perceive the US as a strong enemy.

Commenter charliethreeee challenged the survey:
charliethreeee ? -Mona-
April 13 2016, 1:03 p.m.
The poll was not scientific in any expressed way.

Of course Mona attacked charliethreeee:

-Mona- ? charliethreeee
April 13 2016, 3:24 p.m.
Haroon Moghul appears to trust it. He’s a very bright and knowledgeable man. You are not, as has been evidenced in the comments here repeatedly.

Commenter TRM challenged the poll
TRM
April 13 2016, 3:09 p.m.
Did the poll in Iraq include the Kurds? I suspect not…

Commenter rrheard and Mona suggested it was irrelevant:
-Mona- ? TRM
April 13 2016, 3:12 p.m.
And?
rrheard ? TRM
April 13 2016, 3:14 p.m.
When was the last time the US directly participated in or facilitated the bombing of Kurds? Um never. Just because Iraqi Kurds were physically located in Iraq doesn’t mean they’ve ever been targeted for some of our freedom and liberty bombing runs. Picking up the important distinction?

Yesterday, I used the same poll to prove to rrheard that Muslim perception of the US when the DSB report was written is not the same today. And this is what rrheard responded:

“The whole thing is a collection of self-contradicting “conclusions,” commissioned and produced by a global PR firm, employing a “survey” that I’m not inclined to give much if any weight because of its intrinsic bias and lack of transparent methodology.”

The same poll they were defending last year has become a collection of “self contradicting conclusions” today when they finally noticed that most part of the survey does not fit their twisted argument.

PSB conducted 3,500 face-to-face interviews from January 11 to February 22, 2016 with Arab men and women in the age group of 18 to 24. The interviews were completed in Arabic and English.

It continues:

Respondents, exclusively nationals of each of the surveyed countries, were selected to provide an accurate reflection of each nation’s geographic and socio-economic make-up. The gender split of the Survey is 50:50 male to female. The margin of error of the Survey is +/-1.65 per cent.

…

Iraqi youth from Baghdad, Irbil and Basrah

It seems scientific enough. While the selection methodology is not the greatest, it’s pretty remarkable that 93% of youngsters interviewed face-to-face in Baghdad, Irbil and Basrah view the US as their greatest enemy.

Perhaps you’re claiming the survey is fabricated altogether? There are somewhat older polls of Iraqis, and the underlying theme is that Iraq became a failed state after its 2003 destruction.

Is that for me or for rrheard?
The poll is acceptable and consistent with reality. Hence, why I used it. Last year the same poll was okay for Mona and rrheard. When I used it this year rrheard called it a
“collection of “self contradicting conclusions”

See below. Rrheard even called me a dishonest interlocutor for using the poll. Why? Because in the same poll most young Arabs perceive the US as an ally.

For rational individuals who are interested this is the Defense Science Task Force (DSB) on Strategic Communication released in September 2004.

Please read it and see how commenters like Mona or writers like Glenn Greenwald lie and distort what the report says in order to fit their opinions.

For one thing the Rumsfeld did not commission the DSB to determine the “cause of terrorism against America” like Mona wants you to believe. Moreover, the DSB did not conclude what the causes of terrorism against America is. That was not its mandate.

The United States legal definition of terrorism excludes acts done by recognized states.[10][11] According to U.S. law (22 U.S.C. 2656f(d)(2))[12] terrorism is defined as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience”.[13][14][15] There is no international consensus on a legal or academic definition of terrorism.[16] United Nations conventions have failed to reach consensus on definitions of non-state or state terrorism.[17] *Wikipedia

This assessment is completely in line with Greenwald’s read (and rational thought):

Opinion surveys conducted by Zogby International, the Pew
Research Center, Gallup (CNN/USA Today), and the Department of State (INR) reveal widespread animosity toward the United States and its policies. A year and a half after 15 going to war in Iraq, Arab/Muslim anger has intensified. Data from Zogby International in July 2004, for example, show that the U.S. is viewed unfavorably by overwhelming majorities in Egypt (98 percent), Saudi Arabia (94 percent), Morocco (88 percent), and Jordan (78 percent). The war has increased mistrust of America in Europe, weakened support for the war on terrorism, and undermined U.S. credibility worldwide. Media commentary is consistent with polling data. In a State Department (INR) survey of
editorials and op-eds in 72 countries, 82.5 % of commentaries were negative, 17.5% positive.

Negative attitudes and the conditions that create them are the underlying sources of threats to America’s national security and reduced ability to leverage diplomatic opportunities. Terrorism, thin coalitions, harmful effects on business, restrictions on travel, declines in cross border tourism and education flows, and damaging consequences for other elements of U.S. soft power are tactical manifestations of a pervasive atmosphere of hostility.

“This assessment is completely in line with Greenwald’s read (and rational thought):”

No. It is not. You are working hard to change reality to fit your views.

1) Greenwald told us the DSB mandate was X while in fact it was Y. That is a lie pure and simple.

2) If your “assessment” and Greenwald’s “assessment” are based on the Zogby poll in the DSB report, then that assessment is invalid today because many polls taken more than ten years after the DSB report including the Arab Youth Survey that you, “educated” Mona, and I believe is scientific concluded that most Muslims perceive the US as an ally and and most of them support military operations against ISIS in Iraq.

The Defense Science Task Force and the radical left are simply tying into the invented legacy of Bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

The Defense Science Board does research for the PENTAGON. Donald Rumsfeld commissioned it to determine what is causing the 1.6 Muslims in the world to be so angry with Americans; what drives specifically attacks on Americans. To say the DSB could not reasonably be paired with something called the “radical left,” well, that pairing makes sense only in the demented word of such as Craig Summers.

“And the question that Donald Rumsfeld commissioned that task force to ask was – What is ultimately the cause of terrorism? Why are there so many people in the world that want to do violence to the United States and you can go online and read it. […]

The report in 2004 concluded this; this is what it said. It said : “The key cause of terrorism aimed at Americans is quote “American direct intervention in the Muslim world.” It then identified three different policies that comprise this direct intervention.

One is support for the region’s worst tyrants – giving economic aid and drowning in weapons the regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Secondly was steadfast support for Israel which is viewed as enabling all sorts of aggression in that part of the world.

And third was actual wars and occupations, principally the invasion of Afghanistan. […]

This is what it concluded, quote : “Muslims do not quote hate our freedoms unquote but rather they hate our policies.”

Authoritarian bigots like Craig want Muslims to be regarded as irrational maniacs with no legitimate grievances against the West. But whether he likes it or not — and he most decidedly does NOT like it — The DSB committed some sociology to state the facts to Donald Rumsfeld.

Those who spew that dealing with the FACTS are “anti-Americans” are themselves reflexively, jingoistically resistant to the sins of the nation to which they hold irrational religious fealty.

“Donald Rumsfeld commissioned it to determine what is causing the 1.6 Muslims in the world to be so angry with Americans; what drives specifically attacks on Americans.”

FALSE. You are lying. The mandate of the Defense Science Board (DSB) Task Force on Strategic Communication was to evaluate the US ability to communicate “credibly” to population around the world. In the 2004 report the DSB mandate was to answer the following questions: (page 9)

1) What are the consequences of changes in the strategic communication environment?
(2) What Presidential direction and strategic communication means are required?
(3) What should be done about public diplomacy and open military information operations?

The US Defense Department, (Donald Rumsfeld), DID NOT COMMISSION THE DSB TO DETERMINE WHAT DRIVES MUSLIMS TO SPECIFICALLY ATTACK AMERICANS.

“The report in 2004 concluded this; this is what it said. It said : “The key cause of terrorism aimed at Americans is quote “American direct intervention in the Muslim world.”

FALSE AGAIN

You and Greenwald are lying. The DSB objective, mission was not to ask “what is ultimately the cause of terrorism?”. And the DSB DID NOT conclude that US policies in the Middle East is the cause of terrorism. The DSB concluded that:

“U.S strategic communication must be transformed”, and America’s negative image is the result of many factors not just communications (page 1).

The full quote you are citing is on page 40 of the report:

“American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies.”

Mona:
“This is what it concluded, quote : “Muslims do not quote hate our freedoms unquote but rather they hate our policies.”

This is not the “conclusion” of the report. This is ONE reason the report provided to explain why the US struggle to gain “hearts and minds” have failed. (page 39-40)

As usual you lie when you are incapable of presenting a solid argument. Again, the DSB report did not conclude what the causes of terrorism against America was. THAT WAS NOT EVEN ITS MANDATE.

“………But this grossly nihilistic cult [ISIS] is obviously primarily fueled by chaos, unemployment and despair. It’s not the same dynamic as with Al Qaeda……” my insert in brackets

For the radical left, this statement by Mona represents the “invented” legacy of al-Qaeda and Bin Laden (versus the known brutality of ISIS). The statement by Mona makes perfect sense in defending the conclusions of the DSTF. The Defense Science Task Force (DSTF) concluded that US policies drive terrorism – like the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and our one-sided support for Israel. This was based on the very same grievances outlined by Bin Laden who stated:

“………Allah, the Almighty, legislated the permission and the option to take revenge. Thus, if we are attacked, then we have the right to attack back. Whoever has destroyed our villages and towns, then we have the right to destroy their villages and towns. Whoever has stolen our wealth, then we have the right to destroy their economy. And whoever has killed our civilians, then we have the right to kill theirs……Thus the American people have chosen, consented to, and affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the Palestinians…..”

This, of course, sounds very much like the Defense Task Force (and Greenwald). That’s why al-Qaeda must be perceived differently than the murderous ISIS by the radical left. To the extreme left, Bin Laden’s cause was justified – even the murder of 3000 people (“Whoever has killed our civilians, then we have the right to kill theirs”). Bin Laden symbolized the consequences from hundreds of years of colonialism, western imperialism, theft of natural resources, support for dictators and western support for the only democracy in the Middle East – Israel. Bin Laden fought and died for Muslims to free the Islamic world from western oppression. Bin Laden wasn’t a terrorist. In fact, to the radical left, terrorism is a meaningless term of western propaganda (Greenwald):

“…….As usual, what terrorism really means in American discourse – its operational meaning – is: violence by Muslims against Americans and their allies……”

Bin Laden was a freedom fighter. That’s why the “dynamics” of Al-Qaeda and ISIS must be judged differently (according to Mona). Al-Qaeda represents the victims of western policies. Compare the writing of Bin Laden and Glenn Greenwald:

Greenwald:

“……It’s in the world of reality, not conspiracy, where the US and Israel have continuously brought extreme amounts of violence to the Muslim world, routinely killing their innocent men, women and children. Listening to Engel, one would never know about tiny little matters like the bombing of Gaza and Lebanon, the almost five-decade long oppression of Palestinians, the widely hated, child-killing drone campaign, or the attack on Iraq…..”

Bin Laden:

“…….The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq. These tax dollars are given to Israel for it to continue to attack us and penetrate our lands…..…”

The Defense Science Task Force and the radical left are simply tying into the invented legacy of Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The conclusions of the DSTF are critical to those “legitimate” grievances. But that is far from reality today. Al-Qaeda has proven to be just as brutal as ISIS initiating a murderous sectarian conflict in Iraq (al-Zarqawi), subjugating and murdering mostly Muslims in Yemen, Syria and in the Maghreb. Al-Qaeda is also affiliated with the brutal al-Shabaab in Somalia. Al-Qaeda seeks to re-establish a caliphate and subjugate the population (of mostly Muslims) in formerly conquered Islamic territory including Israel. Al-Qaeda’s legacy is one of murder, fear inducing terrorism, power and propaganda. Al-Qaeda is primarily driven by power, not revenge.

Allow me to provide this friendly advice: it is better to analyze first before you copy and paste. You copied the press report. You did not review the survey.

1) Press report:
“67% of Arabs named both the US or Israel as the country which posed the greatest threat to collective Arab security, and 10% of respondents designated Iran in this way.”

Survey Report Page 5:
“when asked to name the country which posed the single largest threat to their home countries’ national security. With 32% of respondents in the aggregate sample, Israel was the most cited threat to the national security of their home countries. The second most-cited country was the United States, which
14% of Arabs viewed as the country posing the largest threat to their home countries’ national security. Finally, 10% of Arab citizens view Iran as the country which poses the largest threat to their own countries’ national security.”

According to the survey you linked, but did not review 14% of Arabs identified the US as the greatest single threat to collective Arab security. And Israel is the single greatest threat not the US. Read the survey and tell us where that 67% came from.
– Swisscheese

Okay, his mistakes are obvious, but that doesn’t mean he can’t learn from them.

So here’s his post rewritten with a few [helpful hints] for him to follow.

“Allow me to provide this friendly advice [which you should have followed]: it is better to analyze [but read, understand, and have some idea of what you are talking about] first before you copy and paste [reply].

You copied the press report. [true]
You did not review the survey. [false]

1) Press report [and actual survey result]:
“67% of Arabs named both the US or Israel as the country which posed the greatest threat to collective Arab security [emphasis added], and 10% of respondents designated Iran in this way.”

Survey Report Page 5 [on which the question about collective Arab Security is not found]:
“when asked to name the country which posed the single largest threat to their home countries’ national security [emphasis added; now can you see your mistake?]. With 32% of respondents in the aggregate sample, Israel was the most cited threat to the national security of their home countries. The second most-cited country was the United States. . .”

According to the survey you linked [true], but you did not review [false], 14% of Arabs identified the US as the greatest single threat to collective Arab security [please follow your own advice: review the paragraph.] And Israel is the single greatest threat not the US.

Read the survey and tell us where that 67% came from.
[Let’s make that your homework assignment for tonight.
It’s in the survey, but you won’t find it on page 5]”

Doc! I know you to be reasonable man, rooted in fact. What on earth causes you to say, contrary to a great deal of contrary evidence, that swisschees can, in fact, “do it?”

What he does is squeal “Checkmate!” after posting inanity to gobsmacked bright folk aghast at his inanity, and then go running to TI staff whimpering that he wants people to stop being mean, as it’s hurting his fee fees.

“What on earth causes you to say, contrary to a great deal of contrary evidence, that swisschees can, in fact, “do it?”

You are 100% correct. I cannot do it. So please tell us where that 67% came from. You have consistently repeated that I am a “idiot”, “imbecile”, “stupid” and I have been factually incorrect “many times”. Again, I never stated I was “smart”, never stated I was a “scholar”. You claim many times that you and Doc are smart. So please, tell everybody where that 67% is in the survey report.

swisscheese, don’t let Mona get to you. She has gotten her ass kicked on the board recently, a common problem for those with the inability to think critically and who just parrot others, but are hard pressed to provide a cogent argument of their own. This always throws her into name calling, false accusation and outright lying mode. As it is with all bullies you can always count on one or more of her toadies to show up to help with name calling and then they pat each other on the back and talk about how smart they are. It’s common for bullies to have low self esteem and the ones on this board are no exception. They need this reassurance from each other that they are “smart” because the real world provides no such validation for them.
Clearly the need for Mona and her band to delegitimize posters personally arises out of the frustrations at having their parochial views challenged and having no ability to defend those beliefs in any other way.
Again don’t let it upset you, the more vulgar their language the more you are making them squirm,

PS: Page 5 and page 26 in the report have the same conclusions. Page 5 just have more details. In basic statistics: If 32% in the AGGREGATE sample (that means ALL THE COUNTRIES COLLECTIVELY) believe Israel is the greatest threat to their home COUNTRIES SECURITY and 14% believe the US is, then it would not make sense for 67% in the sample to believe that both the US or Israel as the country which poses the greatest threat COLLECTIVELY TO THE SAME SAMPLE. But again since you are “smart” , you probably already know that.

PS: Page 5 and page 26 in the report have the same conclusions. Page 5 just have more details. In basic statistics: If “32% in the AGGREGATE sample” (that means 32% of the 18,310 individual respondents taking part in this survey ALL THE COUNTRIES COLLECTIVELY) believe Israel is the greatest threat to their home COUNTRIES SECURITY and 14% believe the US is, then it would not make sense for 67% in the sample to believe that both the US or Israel as the country which poses the greatest threat COLLECTIVELY TO THE SAME SAMPLE. But again since you are “smart” , you probably already know that.

If the 18,310 individual respondents taking part in this survey were asked to name “the country which posed the single largest threat to their home countries’ national security”, can you reasonably conclude that this is precisely the same as asking them to name “the country which posed the greatest threat to collective Arab security”?

Press Report:
“67% of Arabs named both the US or Israel as the country which posed the greatest threat to COLLECTIVE Arab security”

Survey Report Light Version (page 5)
With 32% of respondents in the AGGREGATE SAMPLE, Israel was the most cited threat to the national security of their home COUNTRIES. The second most-cited country was the United States, which 14% of Arabs viewed as the country posing the largest threat to their home COUNTRIES’ national security. Finally, 10% of Arab citizens view Iran as the country which poses the largest threat to their own COUNTRIES’ national security.

Survey Report (Page 26)
Together with the United States, Israel was identified by respondents as one of the two countries which posed the greatest threat to collective Arab security. Iran was the third most likely country to be named by (10% of) respondents.

Respondents in the AGGREGATE sample = what most Arabs in the sample believed is the greatest threat against them COLLECTIVELY.

Conclusion in page 25 is the SAME in page 5 of the survey report. Page 5 contains more details!

Swisscheese NEVER stated he was “smart”, NEVER stated he was a “scholar”. So, no I cannot find that 67% in the survey report. Please tell us where that 67% is. You would prove Mona you are indeed “smart”. Do not let us wait, please.

PS Basic Statistics: If 32% in the AGGREGATE sample (that means ALL THE COUNTRIES COLLECTIVELY) believe Israel is the greatest threat to their home COUNTRIES SECURITY and 14% believe the US is, then it would not make sense for 67% in the sample to believe that both the US or Israel as the country which poses the greatest threat COLLECTIVELY.

Press Report:
“67% of Arabs named both the US or Israel as the country which posed the greatest threat to COLLECTIVE Arab security”

Survey Report Light Version (page 5)
With 32% of respondents in the AGGREGATE SAMPLE, Israel was the most cited threat to the national security of their home COUNTRIES. The second most-cited country was the United States, which 14% of Arabs viewed as the country posing the largest threat to their home COUNTRIES’ national security. Finally, 10% of Arab citizens view Iran as the country which poses the largest threat to their own COUNTRIES’ national security.

Survey Report (Page 26)
Together with the United States, Israel was identified by respondents as one of the two countries which posed the greatest threat to collective Arab security. Iran was the third most likely country to be named by (10% of) respondents.

Respondents in the AGGREGATE sample = what most Arabs in the sample believed is the greatest threat against them COLLECTIVELY.

Conclusion in page 25 is the SAME in page 5 of the survey report. Page 5 contains more details!

Swisscheese NEVER stated he was “smart”, NEVER stated he was a “scholar”. So, no I cannot find that 67% in the survey report. Please tell us where that 67% is. You would prove Mona you are indeed “smart”. Do not let us wait, please.

PS Basic Statistics: If 32% in the AGGREGATE sample(that means ALL THE COUNTRIES COLLECTIVELY) believe Israel is the greatest threat to their home COUNTRIES SECURITY and 14% believe the US is, then 32% of the 18,310 individual respondents who took part in this survey believed. it would not make sense for 67% in the sample to believe that both the US or Israel as the country which poses the greatest threat COLLECTIVELY.

In the 1980s, Sageman helped organize Afghan resistance fighters against the Soviet Union. Over the decades since, he has interviewed hundreds of individuals accused of involvement in jihadist terrorism, documenting the circumstances of their cases and their personal motivations.

Sageman believes that the only path to winding down our present conflict is to expand our own “in-group.” In the United States, Sageman said that would mean “bringing everybody into the fold and saying that we’re all Americans, equally, and not just focusing exclusively on one group and defining them as suspicious and not completely part of the fold.”

Of Course!!! How did I not see it before??? Terrorism is exclusively in the eye of the beholder. ROFL… you are killing me Murtaza.

So, then, the solution to decades of “terror” driven Islamic diasporas is an open-armed embrace of those Muslims who have been deliberately vilified and violently forced to flee from their homelands by global-minded transnational elitists? The very elites who deliberately endeavored to affect that very outcome in service to their collectivist wet dream of a corporate controlled New World Order ?

Homogenizing, radicalizing, and then militarizing entire Sunni Muslim populations was affected by the Saudis on behalf of Western powers with the specific intention of assimilating Muslim culture into the ever-evolving, all-consuming, neoliberal economic order. And the identity politics that arose from a radicalized Muslim world was intended to provide a collective, bipolar emotional mindset to which the pretext for preemptive regime change by the US policy makers and their allies would have a strong appeal. Likewise, Muslim diasporas are an intended consequence of regime change and the pacification of Muslim cultures; such migrations have always been calculated to incrementally undermine the nativist religious, cultural, and political sensibilities of its intended host nations with the aim of further affecting their own assimilation into the NWO at the expense of their respective national identities. “Crafting a sense of [new] national identity” from the dross of Muslim assimilation is what global-minded leaders have been tasked to do by their elitist puppet masters.

1. My dance card is filled
2. I have a headache
3. I have dentist appointment I’d rather attend
4. My computer keyboard only wants to type “malignant shrew” when addressing you
5. The myriad of conflicting voices in your head are too numerous to address
6. I cannot compete with your mirror for you attention
7. I cannot save you from your tangled web

To repeat one of my posts from yesterday (here). Greenwald in 2009: A Rumsfeld-era reminder about what causes Terrorism, my emphasis, my emphasis:

We can’t combat Terrorism by sending our military into Muslim countries. Doing that only exacerbates the problem, since it inevitably intensifies the anti-American sentiment that enables and fuels the terrorist threat in the first place. All of that is so basic. It’s been empirically proven over and over during the last decade. It’s not Noam Chomsky or Al Jazeera pointing out these basic truths, but instead, a 2004 Task Force handpicked by Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon to review and assess the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism efforts, principally the wars they were waging in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Undoubtedly, there is some small faction of ”Islamic radicals” principally motivated by religious fervor which will likely hate the West regardless of what it does, but — as the 2004 Pentagon-commissioned Report found — their most potent weapons are American policies that inflame anti-American hatred in the Muslim world, beginning with ongoing wars waged by the U.S. military in Muslim countries. That’s so self-evident it shouldn’t require a report to document it, but since it seems to, here’s a very credible report that does exactly that.

Please consult the Defense Science Board study in Glenn’s post I link to below to learn what causes specifically anti-Western hate (and terrorism from a minuscule fraction) from the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims.

The extreme amount of bigoted ignorance you are subjected to here is appalling. Most recently from swisscheese.

I’ve commenced a policy of generally ignoring him and, while you are of course free to choose your own course, I really think it would be wise of you did the same. Intellectually dishonest commenters interested only in tearing others down rather than putting forward their own affirmative views and positions are a waste of time and energy. Most especially when they’re uneducated bigots.

Your comments here have long been some of the very best. Please don’t let the xenophobes chase you out.

All of that is good to hear. Your voice is important, and I mean for me even on a personal level.

Getting entangled with the those not here in good faith, letting them overtake the board, is certainly something I’ve all too often done. I pull back eventually, but more than once it’s been at the behest of others letting me know I’m only letting the bad voices amplify their message.

I have been commenting since 1998 on the Internet and I have never encountered an “educated” individual (Mona) who resort to so much name calling in complete violation of the website policy. Her strategy is simple: name calling and spread lies. Of course she gets away with it because she knows the writers. She has called me “moron” “idiot” “imbecile” “racist” “bigot” “xenophobe” “somebody with Mad Cow disease” “masochist” “snowflake” and many other names. She continues to do so.

I have never seen you Sufi Muslim pinpoint IN ONE OCCASION how “childish”, uncivilized, disrespectful and useless name calling is specially for somebody who claims to be highly “educated”. Yet, you found it necessary to remind everybody many times how “childish” somebody who say “checkmate” is. Checkmate being what a Chess player say to another player (usually very smart individuals).

Here you “thank” Mona after she called another commenter “bigot” and “xenophobe” without even questioning her in what basis “swisscheese” is a bigot.

Why is that? Why you always ignore her consistent name callings to others while you are bothered by somebody who say “checkmate? You should answer these questions to yourself.

I told you the first time we interacted that I take absolutely no offense by others who ignore my comments. I also highly recommend others to ignore my comments if they find them irrelevant or not smart enough for them. So, again if you believe you are too smart for me and my comments are below your level of intellect, then I recommend that you ignore them. Unfortunately, this is a PUBLIC FORUM and I am under no obligation to ignore you. I think that is fair enough.

The basic problem with Marc Sageman and Murtaza Hussain’s arguments on the “misunderstood” terrorists is the fallacy that our shared Universal Human Rights are “relative.” It begins with the fallacy that every culture has authority to decide the meaning of equality, freedom, dignity, freedom of conscience, etc., even the very right to life itself. This fallacy of relativist human rights is the plaything of the privileged free who have too much time on their hands, and not enough responsibility in actually defending and protecting the freedoms they take for granted.

People who have actually struggled and fought for human rights fully realize how obscene the concept of “relativist human rights” really is, which is defended by using a much nicer term of multi-culturalism. Of course, every fair minded person wants to respect diverse cultures, don’t they? Yes, they do. But they don’t intend to use their “fair minded” respect for diversity to rationalize cultural immunity to those who seek to persecute, rape, murder, deny human equality, all in the name of “human rights.” This is because, while we respect diversity and multicultural views, when it comes to human rights, we are unicultural in respecting the shared universal human rights for all people of every identity group, everywhere, without distinction.

Those who seek to promote back-door supremacism leverage multi-cultural respect to seek to get immunity from being held accountable for human rights atrocities. This is the root cause rationale for deflecting a direct accountability of terrorists to anti-human rights ideology, by using the misdirection of political grievances, studies, and other distractions.

Now of course, we would not accepted such a multi-cultural argument of immunity from universal human rights by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany or from American white supremacists, because the privileged West knows very well that would be WRONG, and hold human rights in contempt. But the privileged philosophers of relativism decide to have a double standard on human rights. Accountable human rights standards for Western supremacists, and relative human rights standards for any other supremacist. And we are supposed to nod our heads dumbly and agree with such nonsense as if we had lost all ability of human reason.

So we find ourselves with “misunderstood” terrorists because after all, we can’t offend them by challenging their ideology, like we would with any other anti-human rights and anti-democracy ideology. Then we end up with writers like Murtaza Hussain decrying the poor, poor misunderstood non-Western terrorists and he attracts an amoral fan club like Grace who states the ISIS burning helpless people in cages to death was a good idea.

I think your arguments are valid, I think you’re coming from a good place wanting the same basic rights for all people.
I am in the camp that does respect other cultures and think we rarely intervene for humanitarian reasons and we sacrifice a great deal for all interventions.

I must dispute that I ever stated that burning people in cages was a good idea.
As I have repeatedly said, I simply question if all the atrocities reportedly carried out by IS ..were, as many posts I wrote explain.
But if you choose to believe that’s what I said..I’m not going to keep arguing or defending myself.

Oh what the hell. Handcuff em all, lead to their appointed concentration camps and shrink that haystack. It’s the least you can do to give the elite their much needed security drug to make themselves feel safe. Until they go shopping and see someone innocently sitting in a car, waiting for his wife and SCARED because they don’t like your looks. I mean fear is what its all about – that and money to buy the fear dope access. Go to hell US gov. and your integrated state systems.

You can’t even stop your own malware tools used against you that now stands to harm 10s of millions. You you want to call others “terrorists” simply because they don’t fit into your neat little profiles and sweet, safe, secure tiny little americans.

Your hate for the U.S. does not negate the responsibility for defending our shared universal human rights when they are abused by extremist terrorists in other nations. Two wrongs do not make a right. The mass graves, genocide, torture, rape and murder of women and children by extremist terrorists do not become relatively acceptable, simply because of your view on the U.S.

I guess you would know, since that is where you have set up your permanent “Hate U.S. Shop” to provide rationale and cover for any horror or human rights abuse that anyone else does. Don’t worry I will only bring a folding chair to your non-sequitur storefront; I realize you need to own that strategy 24 x 7.

The Arab Survey you linked to does not connect dissatisfaction of US foreign policy with terrorism. The Defense Science Task Force most certainly did. In fact, Arabs overwhelmingly reject terrorism despite the Defense Science Task Force’s specific conclusion that US foreign gives “legitimacy” to terrorist organizations. They don’t – as indicated by the Arab Youth Survey and the Arab Survey (you linked to).

According to the Defense Science Task Force:

“…….Therefore, the dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of an Umma (the entire Muslim community) invaded and under attack, to broad public support.…..”

But this is not true according to more recent data collected in surveys from the Arab Middle East. According to the 2016 Arab Youth Survey, US foreign policy is not in the top six reasons that youth join ISIS. Even in the “secret” FBI study of homegrown terrorism cited by Murtaza Hussein, only about 18% cited US foreign policy as the major reason for their attack. In the Arab Survey you linked (2016 Arab Opinion Index), when Arabs were asked why Arabs join ISIS,

“……..These were rooted in the government policies and political instability of their home countries (40%) and economic difficulties (22%), while 7% explained the enlistment of Arabs into ISIL on social grounds, such as inequality, marginalization and social exclusion. A further 18% credited “brainwashing” and “propaganda” as the reasons for Arabs to join ISIL, while 17% offered ISIL’s religious rhetoric as the reasons for individuals to join ISIL. Afinal 7% described the chance to fight foreign powers and/or sectarian militia in Syria and Iraq as the motive for young Arabs to fight ISIL……..”

The 18% that credited brainwashing and propaganda probably get all their news from the Intercept. Regardless, this is very similar to the results from the Arab Youth Survey. An overwhelming 89% in the 2016 Arab survey had a negative view of ISIS thus the Defense Task Force opinion that US foreign policy has given “legitimacy” to terrorist organizations (like ISIS) is simply incorrect. Additionally, the 5000(+) Muslims who left Europe to join ISIS (instead of staying at home and attacking the west) is indicative of more complex reasons for joining a terrorist organization like ISIS. The attempt by Greenwald and other radical leftists to blame the US (West) for the rise of Islamic terrorist organizations is at best an extreme simplification of a complex issue which includes anti-globalization, authoritarianism, the sectarian divide, foreign intervention, economics, political instability (like the Arab Spring) etc.

Sorry, Grace, I am not going to get into a debate with someone who writes: “What better way to get the Jordanian population to think twice about IS than burning a pilot from a well known family. While it was extremely brutal, no one can validly argue it didn’t serve a greater purpose..and MAY have involved an injection (kill shot) just prior to immolation.” I believe “never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”

Author Murtaza Hussain – Grace is representative of your fan club. People who praise terrorists burning helpless people to death. Take a pause and consider. Is this the type of fans you want praising your articles on terrorists as “misunderstood”? What do you think allowing such type of thinking to spread will do for the safety and security of Muslims in the West?

“While it was extremely brutal, no one can validly argue it didn’t serve a greater purpose..”

How am I defending IS when I’m questioning if they did it or was it the kind assets that work within IS ????
Who was served by this?

Interesting that questioning anything seems to trouble you, but maybe you’re a Michael Weiss stooge.
Have you never thought how curious it is that IS has a tremendous amount of small white pickups…or they conveniently use and have handy the orange jumpsuit we use in the West to identify one as a prisoner?!
You must think we are all extremely dim.

If are not convinced by
1) ISIS official statements and videos saying and showing what they do
2) Independent media organizations corroborating what ISIS does
3) Humanitarian organization corroborating what ISIS does
4) Human rights organizations corroborating what ISIS does
5) Refugees corroborating what ISIS does
6) UN reports corroborating what ISIS does
7) Regional governments corroborating what ISIS does

Then it is high time for you to go to Raqqa or Mosul to investigate yourself. That’s the only way for you to get the truth as apparently no one can convince you, but yourself.

Seriously…are actually saying that “others” can’t post responsibility whether IS says it or not?
I don’t agree with many of your opinions, but I don’t think you’re that naive and certainly not stupid.

Again…whose interest’s did it serve?
The very countries you refer to?

I am not defending IS…but I certainly not so naive to think that everything attributed to them, is actually done by them.
That would be incredibly stupid for various intel agencies..ours, others to not take advantage of these opportunities to boost support for the fight against IS.

I suppose next you will say every protestor in every country we wanted to see a change in leadership, was the result of the “Arab Spring”….
Sounds like mini me McCain.

If are not convinced by
1) ISIS official statements and videos saying and showing what they do
2) Independent media organizations corroborating what ISIS does
3) Humanitarian organization corroborating what ISIS does
4) Human rights organizations corroborating what ISIS does
5) Refugees corroborating what ISIS does
6) UN reports corroborating what ISIS does
7) Regional governments corroborating what ISIS does

Then it is high time for you to go to Raqqa or Mosul to investigate yourself. That’s the only way for you to get the truth as apparently no one can convince you, but yourself.

1) Certainly not.
2) Was independent media present when the pilot was burned..or was it filmed for distribution by an interested party?
3) I am referring to the burning of the Jordanian pilot.
4)ditto
5) ditto
6) ditto
7) I would expect those tangentially funding IS to corroborate…
I have no interest in going to Raqqa or Mosul and saddened another ancient area will be destroyed.

I hope you aren’t saying it’s time for another action against Jordan or a Jordanian to keep the resistance to US alive…but probably is. Maybe

Grace, I’ve commenced ironing swisscheese 95% of the time. All are free, of course, to do as they please, but he’s not worth the time and energy, and it dissuades him from filling the board with ever more of his bilge if we ignore him.

Islam being an Abrhamic religion should understand the story of Lot and Sodom? God will destroy them all even if there are innocents. Believe the same haskalah is given in Ezekiel. If remember this right God tells our boy zeke that the innocent are to blame for not stopping the bad actors… since they failed too, God intervenes.

How’s that for ya! huh?

This shit aint never gonna end; that bible and every other religion is largely made up but one thing for sure the people that wrote it saw the same behavior a long long time ago.. meaning this shit ain’t ever endin.

One phrase of this no doubt correct article pops out: “In the 1980s, Sageman helped organize Afghan resistance fighters against the Soviet Union.” That would mean that Sageman was working with Jihadis. And not just against the Soviets, but against local Afghan progressives. Hussain, a typical anti-communist, calls them ‘resistance fighters.’ The block between liberals and jihadis – not really far away.

Below the commenter Sufi Muslim encapsulated a source of distrust between Muslims and non Muslims:

“NEITHER YOU NOR ANYBODY ELSE CAN PROVE TO ME THAT A INTERPRETATION IS BETTER BECAUSE MY HEART IS NOT RECEPTIVE TO MAKE ANY DISTINCTION AND I HAVE A SEVERE LACK OF SCIENCES OF QURANIC EXEGESIS.” Sufi Muslim to Swisscheese

She decides that her interpretation of Quranic verses is the “right” one, while other interpretations followed by millions of individuals are the “wrong” one. Those who disagree with that assessment are dumb and have a severe lack of understanding of the Quranic verses.

Top terrorists who disagree with her do not have “a severe lack of sciences of Quranic exegesis”. Sami u Haq, Mullah Omar, Al Baghdadi and many others are Islamic scholars who reject her interpretation.

Non Muslims have no way of knowing which interpretation of the Quran is the “right” one. We pick the peaceful interpretation because it suits us.

PUBLIC FORUM. Anybody can mention your screen name, quote you and respond to everything you have written. As a member of this PUBLIC FORUM, I am granted the privilege to use your comments and anybody’s comments anytime I want in order to express my views.

Sufi..further down the thread you asked what that poster thought when hearing Islamic..
I will always be grateful that my early life experiences left these feelings that at once pop in my heart and mind…
Compassionate, caring, giving,gracious, glowing, kind, secure, trusting and loving.
The stereotypes are far removed from my experiences. It is a faith I greatly admire.

Always nice to point to more well known examples of fundamentalism than Sayyid Qupt …

Mullah Omar was a great option for negotiations…had we not wasted over a decade to get to a point of reason..but sadly, he had died by then.
One more missed opportunity or just another terrible self defeating choice, while our brilliant decision makers (W) was believing our own propaganda.

Yes, he continues to mention these people and refuses to be adult enough to read what the text of the Quran is actually saying and see for himself if the people he continues to mention, their views are in harmony with the Quran or not.

Yes, “swisscheese”, the above is more of a reflection of me than anything else.

“Yes, he continues to mention these people and refuses to be adult enough to read….”

Have you decided to resort to lying because you cannot defend your argument or you are sincerely incapable of understanding what I have been writing?

Again, I read the Quran. I know what the Quran says, but I do not care about it. I read the Bible, I know what the Bible says but I do not care about it. Are you sincerely incapable of understanding the difference between reading and caring? You really cannot understand the difference between reading and knowing the Ten Commandments, but not caring about them? Do you understand when somebody says he knows what the Ten Commandments are, but he does not care about them?

Assuming that you understand the difference between reading a text and caring about the meaning of the text, then your statement is again a reflection of your arrogance that causes you to believe that you are the only one here who knows the Quran. You are not! You think you are because of your arrogance.

Again this is your argument: Sufi Muslim
My interpretation is close to the spirit of the text and language, and takes into consideration textual and historical context.

Al Badghdadi, Mullah Omar, Samu u Haq argument:
Quran verses came from God through the Angel. Historical context is a human concept. Humans do not have the authority to interpret God’s words in order to accommodate their own concepts. Those verses are not from humans, but from God. Therefore, they must be taken literally.

My argument: All of you can be right or wrong. I prefer Sufi Muslim because she is peaceful. I do not care whether her interpretation is correct or incorrect. She and the others can deal with that with their God.

Sufi Muslim conclusion:
Those who cannot see my interpretation is “better” are deaf, dumb…do not understand the Quran.

My suggestion:
Don’t worry about me and my understanding of the Quran. Convince Al Baghdadi, Sami U Haq …who spent their whole life studying the Quran that they do not understand it.

Always nice to point to more well known examples of fundamentalism than Sayyid Qupt …

Mullah Omar was a great option for negotiations…had we not wasted over a decade to get to a point of reason..but sadly, he had died by then.
One more missed opportunity or just another terrible self defeating choice, while our brilliant decision makers (W) was believing our own propaganda.

As I realize you are quite likely being paid for your postings, it does surprise me when you are either oblivious to some of the serious options that were being discussed or you don’t have access.
Interesting.
PS…a big reason we didn’t kill him.

I’m about out of time for this folly…I believe it was Yvonne Ridley that was a captive of MO ..she was a journalist for the BBC. “We” had worked with him over the years to get kidnap victims freed.
A very different story with the Haqanni network… Enough said…

I’m about out of time for this folly…I believe it was Yvonne Ridley that was a captive of MO ..she was a journalist for the BBC. “We” had worked with him over the years to get kidnap victims freed.
A very different story with the Haqanni network… Enough said…

Not only are the findings of the Defense Science Board out of date, they are completely wrong! The 2016 Arab Youth Study showed exactly how out of touch the politically-motivated Defense Science Board of 2004 was. – craigsummers

The post lightly [edited] for accuracy:

“Not only are the findings of the Defense Science Board [spot-on, they have been corroborated! The 2016 Arab Opinion Index] showed exactly how out of touch [with reality I am]”:

‘The 2016 Arab Opinion Index is the fifth in a series of yearly public opinion surveys across the Arab world. The first survey was conducted in 2011, with following surveys in 2012/2013 and 2014.

Results from the 2016 poll show increasing public disenchantment with the policies of a number of foreign countries, both regional and global powers, in comparison with previous years. . .

In specific terms, 75% of the Arab public has negative views of the foreign policy of the United States towards Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. Similarly, around 66% of Arabs view negatively the policies of both Russia and Iran towards the same set of Arab countries.

. . .The United States in particular was also identified as the greatest single threat to collective Arab security: 67% of Arabs named both the US or Israel as the country which posed the greatest threat to collective Arab security, and 10% of respondents designated Iran in this way.

Results from the 2016 survey show an overwhelming majority (89%) of Arabs in opposition to the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. . .Attitudes towards ISIL are not correlated with religiosity: positive and negative views are found equally frequently between those respondents who identify themselves as “Very religious”, “Religious” and “Not religious”. Equally, positive attitudes towards ISIL are not correlated with attitudes towards the role of religion in the public sphere or with beliefs on the use of religion to regulate the economy. The lack of such correlations illustrates the idea that attitudes towards ISIL are defined by political considerations and not by religious beliefs. This is further corroborated by the fact that when asked to explain ISIL’s popularity among its support base, only around 20% of respondents attribute this popularity to religious factors.”

Allow me to provide this friendly advice: it is better to analyze first before you copy and paste. You copied the press report. You did not review the survey.

1) Press report:
“67% of Arabs named both the US or Israel as the country which posed the greatest threat to collective Arab security, and 10% of respondents designated Iran in this way.”

Survey Report Page 5:
“when asked to name the country which posed the single largest threat to their home countries’ national security. With 32% of respondents in the aggregate sample, Israel was the most cited threat to the national security of their home countries. The second most-cited country was the United States, which
14% of Arabs viewed as the country posing the largest threat to their home countries’ national security. Finally, 10% of Arab citizens view Iran as the country which poses the largest threat to their own countries’ national security.”

According to the survey you linked, but did not review 14% of Arabs identified the US as the greatest single threat to collective Arab security. And Israel is the single greatest threat not the US. Read the survey and tell us where that 67% came from.

2) Russia did not intervene in Libya, Yemen, Iraq. Russia is definitely not a top ally of Israel. Syria is the only country Russia intervened after decades. Yet 66% of Arabs in the survey you linked have a negative view of Russia foreign policy towards Libya, Yemen, Iraq, and Palestine. That contradicts what all of you have been trying to deduce from the Defense Board: a restrained foreign policy would result in fewer Arabs hating the US. Russia did exactly that and most Arabs still have a negative view of its policy.

“…….It [Defense Science Board] cites the terrible record of the US as “longstanding prop and alliance partner for. . .the tyrannies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, and the Gulf states” which continues to this day.] What [I] had to say [about it] was a complete lie. [Calling it “out of date” was particularly stupid as the US maintains its “longstanding, even increasing support” for the dictators.]…….” my addition in brackets

Not only are the findings of the Defense Science Board out of date, they are completely wrong! The 2016 Arab Youth Study showed exactly how out of touch the politically-motivated Defense Science Board of 2004 was. For example:

“…….4. Saudi Arabia, UAE, and the US are seen as top allies in the region . ?When asked to think about their country’s biggest ally, Arab youth cite Saudi Arabia (31 percent) for the fifth year running, followed by the UAE (28 percent), and the United States (25 percent)…….”

The US is seen as an ally by Arab youth! US foreign policy didn’t even make the top six in the survey as the number one recruitment driver to join ISIS:

“…….2. Lack of jobs and opportunities is seen as the number one recruitment driver for Daesh ?A quarter (24 percent) of Arab youth believe that lack of jobs and opportunities for young people is one of the primary reasons why some are attracted to Daesh while one in four (25 percent) do not understand why anyone would want to join the militant group. Other reasons as to why some young people are attracted to Daesh include religious differences (18 percent), religious tensions between Sunnis and Shias (17 percent) and the rise of secular Western values in the region (15 percent)………”

Why listen to the people who actually live in the region versus a bunch of white western liberals creating a false narrative based on what the mass murderer Bin Laden said – and is repeated perpetually by the radical left? As Bin Laden meant to say:

“………whoever has killed our civilians, then we have the right to kill ours too……”

The question in the survey was “Top Non-Arab Allies”. In 2015 the US was number one. In 2016, the US was number one and UK was number two. In 2017, Russia is number one and US is number two.

The 25% value is when they put Arab Allies and Non-Arab allies together. In that case the US is number 5 in 2017. The US is the only non Arab country that has always been in the top five since 2012. It was even number 2 in 2015.

So, absolutely it means something good for 25% of Arab youth to believe that a non Arab country to be a top ally. The Arab League has 22 countries!

In 2016, 63% believe the US was a “strong ally”, in 2017 the number is 46%. As you know, US foreign policies has not changed that much in the ME since 2016, so the researchers believe that 2017 drop has more to do with how Arab Youth see Trump.

First, I’m going to take with a huge grain of salt any “survey” commissioned by Burson-Marsteller or PSB Research, for obvious reasons. If you don’t understand why that is, do your own research. Both are global corporate propaganda/PR firms (either started by Mark Penn or once run by Mark Penn) that have represented some of the most vile clients and causes. Forgive me if I don’t trust a word that comes out of their collective mouths. It isn’t their job to produce peer reviewed academic or government quality data, statistical analysis and conclusions. Their job is propaganda, spin, and “crisis management” (all the same thing).

Moreover, I’m not putting much stock as a statistical matter in what 3,500 18-24 year olds across 16 countries with fundamentally different histories, populations and past and present circumstances, think about much of anything.

Moreover, and quoting page 53:

The region and its youth are an unpredictable, emotive judge of America, opinions fluctuate with changing expectations of what they want the US to deliver.

You don’t say, who would have thought, pretty much could be said of most young adults regardless of where they are from all over the world.

Second, and I quote page 5:

According to this year’s Survey, young Arabs do not see the US, Russia or other international powers as their biggest allies, but Saudi Arabia and UAE. And they increasingly see the UAE as a model country-one that they would not only choose to live in over any other, but also want their own countries to emulate.
[snip]
The solution for the region’s problems, as the Arab Youth Survey sees it, must come from within this region, and not from US, Russia, Europe or even the United Nations.

Third, how about page 9:

Anti-American views are on the rise, and now Russia-not the US-is seen as the region’s top international ally.

The whole thing is a collection of self-contradicting “conclusions,” commissioned and produced by a global PR firm, employing a “survey” that I’m not inclined to give much if any weight because of its intrinsic bias and lack of transparent methodology.

That you give this sort of corporate propaganda any weight is up to you. I don’t believe you’re a good faith interlocutor here which is why I rarely engage you, so all I can say is believe what you choose.

“I’m going to take with a huge grain of salt any “survey” commissioned by Burson-Marsteller or PSB Research, for obvious reasons. If you don’t understand why that is, do your own research. Both are global corporate propaganda/PR firms (either started by Mark Penn or once run by Mark Penn) that have represented some of the most vile clients and causes.”

“The whole thing is a collection of self-contradicting “conclusions,” commissioned and produced by a global PR firm, employing a “survey” that I’m not inclined to give much if any weight because of its intrinsic bias and lack of transparent methodology.”

You did not seem to have a problem with the same survey when Murtaza Hussain used it on April 13, 2016:

“YOUNG IRAQIS OVERWHELMINGLY CONSIDER U.S. THEIR ENEMY, POLL SAYS”

You concurred with those who accepted it including Harron Moghul.
Did you write something about “contradiction”?

In defending the absurd concept that such terrorists are just misunderstood, commenter Grace actually defends ISIS burning people to death in cages. OK. This is who we are talking to, those that think burning people alive is alright, and is a good strategy for human rights and security. That is how far in delusion and absurdity that this situation has become. Commenter Grace writes: “What better way to get the Jordanian population to think twice about IS than burning a pilot from a well known family.” And people who believe they support human rights, nod their heads.

This is how far away from any level of consistent human rights or respect for human dignity that the apologists and appeasers of extremists are. Imagine if Grace had written such a comment about a white supremacist terrorist group’s action. She would be widely derided as a racist, bigot, calls to block her, etc., and you know I am correct. But when it is ISIS terrorists committing crimes against humanity, well, they are just “misunderstood.” And most of the commenters and readers here don’t see anything wrong or hypocritical about that. I also see the NY Times has a puff piece on Al-Shabab killers today too.

Imagine if our media was writing articles about white supremacist and Nazi terrorists were “misunderstood,” and the NY Times was publishing an article “Drinking a Fanta with white supremacists and Nazis” as good old boys, who really just want peace, if their supremacist culture just wasn’t being bothered by those pesky FBI, ACLU, and civil rights groups. I am sure that is the type of analgous writing we would have seen in Adolf Hitler’s Der Sturmer and the like. So when the same type of writing is finding its way into the corporate media as well as the “alternative” left wing media, it should be raising a RED FLAG and alarms to those genuinely concerned about human rights.

But instead it will get shrug shoulders response. And that is the real story here. We have come to EXPECT appeasement of extremists that despise our shared human rights, by the corporate as well as the alternative left media. You may enjoy a smug position on this to rationalize hatred of U.S. and the West. But the long term damage to freedom of the press by such inconsistency on human rights, continues to threaten everyone’s rights. The slippery slope of appeasement of anti-human rights values undermines the rights of all people. A corrupt media gets “used” to it as “normal.”

Right. Iirc, one of the first things commentator Grace reported here was “men asking women to take their cloths off on the beach [s of France] are insane.”

Well, unless those men are French police, I’m not insane … my moma had me tested.

Likewise, one of the terrible troubles with terrorism nowadays is nobody agrees on wtf it is.

Since AD 9/11 western media and Craigsummers most often describe terrorism as non-state actors and Islamic, but the earliest use of … “the word terrorism identified by the Oxford English Dictionary is a 1795 reference to tyrannical state behavior, the “reign of terrorism” in France.[22] In that same year, Edmund Burke famously decried the “thousands of those hell-hounds called terrorists” who he believed threatened Europe.[23] During the Reign of Terror, the Jacobin government and other factions of the French Revolution used the apparatus of the state to kill and intimidate political opponents, and the Oxford English Dictionary includes as one definition of terrorism “Government by intimidation carried out by the party in power in France between 1789-1794″.[24] The original general meaning of terrorism was of terrorism by the state, as reflected in the 1798 supplement of the Dictionnaire of the Académie française, which described terrorism as systeme, regime de la terreur.[23] Myra Williamson wrote:

The meaning of ‘terrorism’ has undergone a transformation. During the Reign of Terror, a regime or system of terrorism was used as an instrument of governance, wielded by a recently established revolutionary state against the enemies of the people. Now the term ‘terrorism’ is commonly used to describe terrorist acts committed by non-state or sub – national entities against a state. (italics in original)[25]
*Wikipedia

Craig. Idk what-all is wrong with you, but you’re too young to be suffering from full-blown dementia. A quick stroll down memory lane [immediately below]:

Muslim killing spree … Islamic terrorist attacks … Islamic extremism at its worst…. I have yet to see a Islamic terrorist organization … interpretation of sharia law. Islamic terrorism … is about power, not revenge.

And that’s just your last, blissfully short, post.

*Until the recent unpleasantness in Syria [see esp. FSA doings 2011], western educated Assad was considered about as secular-elected head of state as you would find in the entire ME willing to engage in rendition, interrogation and brutal torture for western States and [Shia-dominated] Iran alike … with equal enthusiasm.

I am not trying to deny there is Islamic terrorism in the world. In fact, Sunni Muslims commit more acts of terrorism than anyone else, but I don’t define terrorism as committed only by non state actors. That is pure BS.

“………violent, non-state actors being essentially indistinguishable from common criminals……”

Now that is pure bullshit. Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda, TTP, ISIS, Taliban are not just common criminals. Quit giving politically motivated terrorist organizations a free pass by calling them common criminals. They have political goals.

You start your argument with the premise that commenters like Grace care about human rights. They do not. They want to live in an universe where the US and its allies are the greatest villains on earth. US allies really mean just Israel although most Arab youths see the US as an ally (63%, Arab Youth Survey). Writers like Hussain, Greenwald, Scahill and others understand them perfectly. So, they write articles to please those readers, not to educate or inform them. Those writers always attempt to place the US as the source of any international or even domestic conflicts. Greenwald even blamed the Brazilian economic crisis largely on the 2008 US financial crisis while Brazil was in fact lightly affected by the crisis. Those writers would claim that Afghanistan is worse now than it was before the occupation. This is insane. Highly educated and famous writers telling the world that women going schools, having access to healthcare, finally getting elected positions are worse off now than when the Taliban was in charge and committing genocide. They also claimed interventions against ISIS in Iraq would worsen the situation. Life for Iraq Kurds must be so bad now that ISIS is being pushed away.

“Highly educated and famous writers telling the world that women going schools, having access to healthcare, finally getting elected positions are worse off now than when the Taliban was in charge and committing genocide”

“that women going schools, having access to healthcare”

Ever notice that almost every time there were US or coalition troops killed while traveling by convoy, that they’d be on the way to or from a “girls school” ??
It plays so well across the West.
Had we not wanted to turn their society upside down we could have negotiated a deal for both sexes to be educated.
I’m glad you think they have healthcare, hopefully not at a highly risky MSF location ..,oops I forgot MSF had to pull out after we shelled / bombed them for the better part of a few hours.
So, where are these girls getting their healthcare??

I will point out I do support the U.S., but not the long term policies and strategies of US foreign policy. The only reason we have cared enough to destroy one of the poorest societies on earth was the geo political location of Afghanistan.
While I will not follow you quite that far off topic…
I will mention that Ben Gurion wrote in his auto biography that he feared the State of Pakistan, as they were Muslim.
I will also mention that we have piss poor educational opportunities for boys and girls in this country…the U.S. …not sure what your country may be.
The U.S. has not won in the war on terror and never will. With all the countries we’ve laid waste to and left numerous biopersistant chemicals to prevent a healthy population to re form…the countless victims killed and displaced..the young servicemen who signed up for service believing the U.S. was in a fight for a greater good, only to be killed, maimed or emotionally destroyed when faced with brutal tactics and few rules of engagement…the U.S. has been sucked dry of funds for a better society for our few 330 million citizens. Those citizens are our greatest asset. Is it a left / right issue to have good education and healthcare…it shouldn’t be.
I will also mention, that while I realize it was in large part due to the DoD that we didn’t attack Iran..the real defense side of our military is exhausted, our equipment old and poorly maintained. To stay on this path we should be honest and have another Department of War or Department of Offense and not pretend it is for America’s defense.
Israelis that have cheered, provided absurd translations of Farsi and Arabic to serve a narrative to get the U.S. to support its own destruction for Israel…are not friends to the U.S…merely feeding on a host.
So pretend all you like that girls in Afghanistan are better off than they would have been with strong diplomacy with the Taliban or that girls in America are not worse off for it.
I am very much in support of many of the good things this country seemingly supported…Liberty, the pursuit of happiness…freedom of the press..rights to privacy…I will blame Israeli groups in this country, blindly supporting Israeli strategic interests for robbing our country of all those and more.
Interestingly Israel shares many similarities of Sparta…like Sparta, maybe you will be swept away..a footnote or chapter of history…and any and all who want to return to their homeland or resettle Jerusalem can.
In the meantime more people will open their eyes to what we are losing…the lost opportunity costs of this “special relationship” and get on a better path for this new millennia.

You really do not know or you just pretend you do not know? This is your answer:

In 2200 healthcare facilities in 34 provinces. The mortality rate of mothers under the Taliban was 1,600 per 100,000 because the Taliban refused male doctors to assist female patients among other restrictions. Today the rate is 327 per 100,000. More information from the World Bank:

I avoided most of your nonsense. This is part I think you should elaborate:

“So pretend all you like that girls in Afghanistan are better off than they would have been with strong diplomacy with the Taliban or that girls in America are not worse off for it.”

by 2001, the Taliban already committed genocides, multiple massacres, responsible for the “worst place on the globe for women’s health (UNICEF), prevented humanitarian workers from getting in, responsible for millions of refugees, closed and destroyed schools, no TVs, no radios….

Now please, tell us how girls in Afghanistan would have been better off with “strong diplomacy” with the Taliban. The UN spent four years begging the Taliban to let humanitarian aids get in. The Taliban refused. The UN put the Taliban under sanctions. The Taliban still refused.

Too bad UN and USAID often are peppered with intelligence agents and lay the groundwork for destabilizing a sovereign state.
Maybe Soros could have jumped in and had a colour movement..but hey ..are there any colours left.
I have no clue what genocide you’re speaking of.
As far as massacres go…they hardly had any worse than the Northern Alliance.

I felt awful for the some of the women there. Afghanistan is a poor country with few resources..a situation that makes for more violence and subjugation of women in all cultures and religions more common.
I don’t think negotiations that start with “step aside, play ball, do it our way or else” will ever lead to a peaceful resolution.
If our goal is a strategic invasion…feigned attempts at negations are a mere pretense to later be used as “we tried”.

You must be able to support your own argument. You claim “strong diplomacy ” with the Taliban would have made life better for Afghan women. Tell us about your “strong diplomacy”. What does it entail with regards to the Taliban. Be specific please.

“Did the World Bank get those numbers from the Taliban? I’m surprised they kept such good records.”

No. Mortality Rate is an estimate calculated through surveys. Medical workers, aid workers go to villages and perform those surveys. The above number was probably higher because the Taliban prevented medical workers from going to many places. Details on how MMR was calculated is here:http://afghana.com/Articles/maternalmortalityafghanistan.doc

” but I do know Cuba had better much numbers on infant mortality rates than the U.S. did/does.”

What the hell Cuba mortality rate has to do with Afghanistan mortality rate under the Taliban?

This report is so out of date that it’s ridiculous. The report was released before al-Qaeda’s al-Zarqawi went on a Muslim killing spree to provoke a civil conflict in Iraq. Al Qaeda has brutalized civilians throughout the Middle East, but especially in Yemen, Iraq and Syria. What Bin Laden had to say was a complete lie. The report attempted to make victims of Muslims at the hands of the west, but the largest recipient of Islamic terrorist attacks are Muslims putting the lie to the report.

The report is still cited (mostly by the radical left), but you have to ignore a lot of very recent history to believe anything from the outdated report. The report represents appeasement of Islamic extremism at its worst. I have yet to see a Islamic terrorist organization that only attacks the west because of our policies without some kind of plan to subjugate mostly Muslims under their interpretation of sharia law. Islamic terrorism is about power, not revenge. . .

This and other grievances have been parroted time and time again by Greenwald and many others on the anti-war left, but studies have shown this to be an extreme simplification at best. Al-Qaeda and all other Islamic terrorist organizations have murdered countless Muslims in support of re-establishing the caliphate, or establishing their interpretation of sharia law in an anti-democratic, anti-global society. There is no question that many Islamic radicals would love to change US foreign policy, but not because we kill Muslims, but because the US stands in the way of their radical plans for the Middle East which includes using terrorist tactics to induce fear in the general population to subjugate mostly Muslims (like the Taliban) – craigsummers

The posts lightly edited for accuracy:

“[My lies are] so out of [touch with reality] that it’s ridiculous. The report was released [after the US] went on a Muslim killing spree in [Afghanistan and then] Iraq[. This was before the US aided the French and British in destroying Libya and before the US escalated wars on Syria, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. So I just ignore how the US and its proxies have] brutalized civilians throughout the Middle East, but especially in [Afghanistan], Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

[Contrary to my baseless claims and falsehoods, The Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication from the U.S. Department of Defense is as pertinent now as it was in 2004. It cites the terrible record of the US as “longstanding prop and alliance partner for. . .the tyrannies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, and the Gulf states” which continues to this day.] What [I] had to say [about it] was a complete lie. [Calling it “out of date” was particularly stupid as the US maintains its “longstanding, even increasing support” for the dictators.] The report [explains the resentment engendered by the oppression and killing of] Muslims at the hands of the west[. There’s no denying that US violence overwhelming targets] Muslims, putting the lie to [my delusional rant].

The report is still cited by th[ose who care about the truth and have some shred of moral and intellectual integrity. I want to pretend its conclusions are somehow obsolete], but [I still] have to ignore a lot of very recent history to believe anything [that I post]. The report re[veals my dehumanization of Muslims] at its worst. I have yet to [advocate that] the west [support the same kind of] policies to subjugate [Americans or any Western Europeans the way I advocate the oppression of] Muslims under [my] interpretation of [“promoting democracy”

I’m actually not all that concerned about Arab victims of] Islamic terrorism[; I’m really not. That’s why,] In my opinion, the US made a mistake by bombing ISIS in Syria since they are the best military fighting Assad. That’s how much I care.”

Do you support or oppose the airstrikes by coalition forces which are happening in Iraq currently?
July 2015, Support: 44% (Iraq Public Opinion, ORB International, July 2015)

Do you support or oppose the US military actions against ISIS in Iraq and Syria?
June 2015, Support: Turkey 48%, Palestinian Territories 53%, Jordan 77%

You are explaining Muslims’ perception of the US based on information released more than ten years ago while current data shows that Muslims’ perception has changed continuously during that period.
The fact that you are called “smart” by someone who cannot stop bragging about her “education ” exposes the poor state of academia nowadays.

Tell Congress. Tell the presidents for the last 60 years. It’s ‘the Russians’ or ‘terrorists’ – never ending while we rip our way through the world causing more pain and misery than anyone, ever. Congress doesn’t care. They want war. They want militarism. They think it is good for business, for our economy. How else can you make money, markets, ‘opportunity’. A Congress full of the greedy and the cowardly. Presidents that lie and then lie some more. This country is failing. It is failing because of the lack of integrity and leadership and greed. Disgusting!

Murtaza Hussain – you get praise on this “great article on the subject of a rational analyses of the causes of terrorism” from the same commenter Grace who also writes defending ISIS burning alive a human being in a cage: “What better way to get the Jordanian population to think twice about IS than burning a pilot from a well known family.” These are the fans of your editorial, Murtaza Hussain.

Rachel Corrie…not forgotten.
USS Liberty …not forgotten.
Blowing up the King David Hotel ..not forgotten.
Tristan Anderson…not forgotten.
Sonic bursts to cause the miscarriage of pregnant Palestenians..not forgotten.
Targeted assassination of children for throwing rocks…not forgotten.
Displacing the Christian and Muslim population by land seizure and forfeiture …not forgotten.
Extreme racism that does not represent Judaism..is a stain on Judaism and fuels anti Semitic movements …not forgotten.

How long should I make this list…
You are not a friend to the United States or humanity.
The movement grows…long live BDS..and as you write your bullying comments..keep in mind you fuel the rejection of Zionism and the support of Boycott Divest Sanction.

The statistic at the top of the page is inconsistently and wrongly applied. The “1% wrong” scenario uses the Muslim population as the denominator but the “99% right” scenario uses something else to get to 22 terrorists per year – it’s not actually clear what it uses.

A dragnet focused on only Muslims obviously does not lead to arresting 1% of the total population. The correct statistical hypothetical is to take the percentage of total arrests. Sageman does not estimate the total arrests in the dragnet scenario. His use of this hypothetical is therefore useless and undermines his own argument.

“…….. A Rumsfeld-era reminder about what causes Terrorism, my emphasis:…..”

This report is so out of date that it’s ridiculous. The report was released before al-Qaeda’s al-Zarqawi went on a Muslim killing spree to provoke a civil conflict in Iraq. Al Qaeda has brutalized civilians throughout the Middle East, but especially in Yemen, Iraq and Syria. What Bin Laden had to say was a complete lie. The report attempted to make victims of Muslims at the hands of the west, but the largest recipient of Islamic terrorist attacks are Muslims putting the lie to the report.

The report is still cited (mostly by the radical left), but you have to ignore a lot of very recent history to believe anything from the outdated report. The report represents appeasement of Islamic extremism at its worst. I have yet to see a Islamic terrorist organization that only attacks the west because of our policies without some kind of plan to subjugate mostly Muslims under their interpretation of sharia law. Islamic terrorism is about power, not revenge.

I should ask you your version of the ship of refugees that was the subject of book and film. Was it not loaded with women and children with the quite believable threat to the British that those in charge of the ship were prepared to blow it up if not allowed past the blockade? Was that to show Zionist determination ?

While I disagree with your opinion on the subject of terrorism and that people who disagree are part of the radical left, I do not think the chaos created by U.S. /Israeli foreign policy objectives was worth the lives of any American’s or the amount of dead and displaced Iraqi’s, but I will say your last two posts seemed more like presenting your opinion rather than belittling and insulting other commenters, as it often seems you do.

“………but I will say your last two posts seemed more like presenting your opinion rather than belittling and insulting other commenters, as it often seems you do……”

I always respond to the article first. I don’t try to insult the journalists because, generally speaking, I mostly respect their opinion. Insults invariably come later when responding to other posters. However, I certainly do not insult every or even most posters (although I have not conducted any surveys).

The US bombs, drones and currently conducts warfare in seven Muslim dominant countries without a significant amount of successful terrorist attacks at home. Additionally, no western country is responsible for as many Muslim deaths as the US with our “war on Islam”. According to Greenwald, we dehumanize Muslims and even view Muslims as “subhuman”. US foreign policy is based on anti-Muslim racism (according to Greenwald). Any normal, right thinking Muslim should want to attack the US – but they don’t. Only a tiny percentage of Islamic terrorist attacks occur in the US. This indicates a couple of possibilities:

1. The US counter terrorism program has been extremely successful which makes changing the current policy a bad idea or,
2. Muslim blow back for US policies is simply not as bad as the usual suspects like Greenwald and the anti-war left propagate at the Intercept (and elsewhere).

In the study cited in this article (“Homegrown Violent Extremists: Survey Confirms Key Assessments, Reveals New Insights about Radicalization”), only 18% of the homegrown Islamic terrorists cited US foreign policy as the reason. That only amounts to one in five homegrown terrorist attacks. In addition, a study conducted in the Middle East on why Muslims join ISIS didn’t even list US foreign policy in the top six as the reason. The idea that US foreign policy is the primary motivator for homegrown terrorism is blown way out of proportion for anti-war political reasons. The radical left and some liberals base this on the grievances of Bin Laden who stated:

“……whoever has killed our civilians, then we have the right to kill theirs…….”

This and other grievances have been parroted time and time again by Greenwald and many others on the anti-war left, but studies have shown this to be an extreme simplification at best. Al-Qaeda and all other Islamic terrorist organizations have murdered countless Muslims in support of re-establishing the caliphate, or establishing their interpretation of sharia law in an anti-democratic, anti-global society. There is no question that many Islamic radicals would love to change US foreign policy, but not because we kill Muslims, but because the US stands in the way of their radical plans for the Middle East which includes using terrorist tactics to induce fear in the general population to subjugate mostly Muslims (like the Taliban).

Below, Doc Holly wood quotes and cites the Defense Science Board study, one of the strong pieces of evidence that the West — especially the United States — fuels the specifically anti-Western terrorism it purports to fight. (IN a world of 1.6 billion Muslims, some of them also do bad things for other reasons, as with every other group having some legitimate grievances and others which are not legitimate.) Greenwald wrote about that study in 2009: A Rumsfeld-era reminder about what causes Terrorism, my emphasis:

We can’t combat Terrorism by sending our military into Muslim countries. Doing that only exacerbates the problem, since it inevitably intensifies the anti-American sentiment that enables and fuels the terrorist threat in the first place. All of that is so basic. It’s been empirically proven over and over during the last decade. It’s not Noam Chomsky or Al Jazeera pointing out these basic truths, but instead, a 2004 Task Force handpicked by Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon to review and assess the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism efforts, principally the wars they were waging in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Undoubtedly, there is some small faction of ”Islamic radicals” principally motivated by religious fervor which will likely hate the West regardless of what it does, but — as the 2004 Pentagon-commissioned Report found — their most potent weapons are American policies that inflame anti-American hatred in the Muslim world, beginning with ongoing wars waged by the U.S. military in Muslim countries. That’s so self-evident it shouldn’t require a report to document it, but since it seems to, here’s a very credible report that does exactly that.

It’s Human Nature 101 that if you arrogantly interfere — often violently — with others, they’re gonna get pissed off, and some are going to bite back. The idea that one would need formal studies to accept these basics of behavioral cause and effect is absurd, but for the neoliberal and wingnut hacks who demand it (but who will never be seen to accept this reality that flouts their preferred policies), it does in fact exist.

Finally, at some point I’m going to post a collection of wingnut/neoliberal “reasons” for not relying on the Defense Science Board study. From the time Glenn wrote about at Salon, up through the present, a huge pile of risible objections has accumulated. Some are quite hilarious, and no doubt are already showing up here.

“[V]iolent terrorist plots in Western countries are a statistically tiny phenomenon, which makes blanket counterterrorism approaches an ill-suited response.” Or as Ben Franklin put it, those who would sacrifice their civil liberties for safety deserve neither.

And while he sugarcoated it, Sageman is quite correct that the massive propaganda regarding terrorism — a term that I totally reject, BTW

I agree with the article, but the author is also guilty. The US has helped destroy the Muslim states of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. Terrorism is really a blow back of imperialism. Yet we will never understand imperialism if the writers of the Intercept continue to pretend that Trump has just ushered in Imperialism and fascism, thus deflecting from our decades of imperialism in the Middle East. Furthermore, Pushing groups like the White Helmets also make the Intercept guilty of fueling Western propaganda and war.

Misunderstand Terrorism on Mother’s Day: We All Have Something Different In Common

“All of us see the world through the prism of identity, so when we see an escalation of a conflict happening between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ it inevitably leads some people toward political violence,” Sageman told The Intercept in an interview.

This is why I most ‘identify’ with the group homo sapians (Homo sapiens — Latin: “wise man” — is the binomial nomenclature (also known as the scientific name) for the only extant human species.) ever since I grew out of my swaddling cloths.

Every imperfect soul is self-centered and thinketh only of his own good. But as his thoughts expand a little he will begin to think of the welfare and comfort of his family. If his ideas still more widen, his concern will be the felicity of his fellow citizens; and if still they widen, he will be thinking of the glory of his land and of his race. But when ideas and views reach the utmost degree of expansion and attain the stage of perfection, then will he be interested in the exaltation of humankind. He will then be the well-wisher of all men and the seeker of the weal and prosperity of all lands.

Some people believe it does and some don’t. I do not care what the Quran advocates. I do not believe in the Quran.

“if that’s the case, why would terrorists be inspired by it?”

Read. Some terrorists are Islamic scholars and they have written books and articles explaining why the Quran grants them the right to use terrorism.

“terrorists misinterpret the quran”

I do not know whether terrorists misinterpret the Quran because Islam is a religion, not a science. Religions are opened to different interpretations. The terrorists can be right or wrong. The peaceful Muslims can be right or wrong. I prefer the interpretation of the peaceful Muslims because they are peaceful. Whether their interpretation is right or wrong is something they will have to deal with their God not me.

even quite a while however eventually even she has better things to do

This is true. It’s become clear he presents the some issue Craig Summers long has, in that he’s a moron who posts endless litanies of stupidity and poorly “reasoned” bilge. (And amusingly, then whines about attacking him instead of his dumb “arguments.”)

So I’m now mostly ignoring him; should he specifically address me, most often I’ll only reply that I ignore him for being a moron who wastes everyone’s time. That way, and as with Craig, I won’t contribute to his posting even more shite.

Feel free to ignore my comments. I don’t have to ignore yours. I will be here to tell everybody that
1) You quote Goebbels, but you have no idea in what book, what newspaper, what speech he said those words you quoted
2) You stated that most Palestinians support one state solution after looking at those data:
44% of Palestinians support a two state solution, 36% support a one state, 20% undecided

The people you call “morons” or “idiots ” have a good history of exposing your incompetence.

His research comes to two broad conclusions. The first is that violent terrorist plots in Western countries are a statistically tiny phenomenon, which makes blanket counterterrorism approaches an ill-suited response. The second takeaway is that “social identity theory” — that is, how people self-identify in a crisis — is the primary motivating factor behind terrorist attacks.

People such as Wesley Dodds cannot see the difference between understanding something and making excuses for it. This stuff is so painfully obvious it really should not require a book. Nor does a book necessarily help; WD is just as capable of misunderstanding 50,000 words as 5. Not sure what to make of Stegira man, except to point out that there are analogous reasons for misunderstanding both terrorism and global warming.

Yes, Gee, Officer Krupke, they are just “misunderstood”…. so cue the music, maestro…

Dear kuffar Agent Krupke
You gotta understand
It’s the Western Islamophobia
that’s why I bomb and kill for “Allah”
If wasn’t for the Western military
we would all be happy and free
They criticize me for bombings and for genocide
But really it’s the rights I have been denied

I’ve been denied, been denied
And the crooked West has only lied
I have a right to child brides
Terror attacks just show my pride

Dear kuffar Agent Krupke
You gotta understand
There’s a reason we burn people alive
It’s not that I have an extremist ideology
I just need the freedom to have 8 wives
Attacking the kuffar is what makes me free
So don’t I have the right to be angry

I am angry, am angry
which is why I slaughter with glee
And those who criticize me just slur
Because don’t you know, it’s my culture!

Dear kuffar Agent Krupke
You gotta understand
The people that think my anti-freedom ideology is bizarre
They disrespect my religion, which is why I shout Akbar
You may think my terrorism is bloody
But that’s what I need to stop blasphemy
My choices of innocent victims may leave you perplexed
Don’t worry, because you are next!

It’s blasphemy, blasphemy
We repress everyone so they can be free
So I am part of a global terror army
To kill everyone that disagrees with me!

(inspired by Marc Sageman and Murtaza Hussain, with apologies to Stephen Sondheim, but then again, why should we apologize to Zionist appeasers, eh?)

What better way to get the Jordanian population to think twice about IS than burning a pilot from a well known family.
While it was extremely brutal, no one can validly argue it didn’t serve a greater purpose..and MAY have involved an injection (kill shot) just prior to immolation.

Marc Sageman has been making excuses for terrorists as misunderstood for nearly 10 years, and did so also in his last book, “Leaderless Jihad.” Mr. Sageman also excuses terrorists in interviews and articles, which appeasers like to quote because he always has excuses, and never has answers. And this is the type of person that the U.S. **PAYS** to provide consulting support to “counter” terrorism. Marc Sageman’s “Officer Krupke” narrative is so tired and proven to be so worthless that only those who really are looking for misdirection quote Mr. Sageman. We have seen how little value his “guidance” has been in stopping or halting terrorism over the past 10 years – a counterterrorism expert who does nothing to “counter” terrorism. He is useful for politically-based misdirection, but that’s about it.

So that brings us to The Intercept and author Murtaza Hussain. Now if I was genuinely concerned or frustrated over White Supremacist terrorism, I would do more than excuse White Supremacist terrorist movement’s “political grievances,” but I would challenge the ideology of White Supremacy in rejecting our shared human rights. You can take a look at the Twitter account of this author, Murtaza Hussain. Do you see where he is challenging the ideology of radical Islamism, those that seek to attack our shared human rights? Do you see where Murtaza Hussain is campaigning for a new narrative to challenge radical Islamists or calling for a demonstration to show how radical Islamists do not reflect the values of Islam? And let’s not pretend that the author, Murtaza Hussain, is burdened by the material fear of political consequences from Saudia Arabia, which he conveniently brings out as an excuse for silence to rationalize silence by the many millions of Western Muslims on this, and of course, himself too. He knows about the intolerance in Indonesia, and of course Pakistan in other nations, but he really does not want to consider such intolerance of radical Islamism as a problem, when he has intellectual door stoppers like Marc Sageman to rationalize everything away. It’s nobody’s fault according to Mr. Sageman, except the horrible Western political people and all those horrible people who hate Muslims. So that is why we see the slavery, abuse, persecution, murders, institutional blasphemy laws to suppress non-Muslims, and the “wrong kind of” Muslims around the Greater Middle East and Asia. Mr. Sageman and Murtaza Hussain don’t want us to look too closely at this, when we can explain it away on the evil West.

What would have happened if we had a Marc Sageman to explain and away and justify White Supremacist terrorism in the 1960s? Would we still have public racial segregation? Would blacks still be denied basic public rights as citizens? I have news for you, if we had listened to the Marc Sageman’s of the world on White Supremacist terrorists as just misunderstood, there certainly would have never been any President Obama, not even in this CENTURY.

But we can’t face facts when we have a political narrative to pitch, and this is what The Intercept has become. Not to inform or to educate, but only to “shape” opinion, you know like the rest of the “media” that has abandoned news reporting for political activism. It is to focus on the bad, bad West, the bad, bad Trump, and provide political cover for extremist ideologies that are categorically in opposition to our shared universal human rights. Congratulations. Sayyid Qutb Ibrahim Husayn Shadhili would be proud.

This Murtaza bloke is a very nice and honest Paki fellow who, along with a few other samples like him, writes in this website quite often, which should not dismay you unnecessarily. They neither have any agenda nor any news, and so are heavily challenged to create what they believe can sustain their existence, the Great Allha willing, while they rush from one of their five daily prayers to the next.

I have asked Murtaza to have a scoop interview with the multiple concubines of Osama bin Laden, but this bloke isn’t obliging because he finds the task of manufacturing news items and anti-terror advises immensely more safe and gratifying.

Now if I was genuinely concerned or frustrated over White Supremacist terrorism, I would do more than excuse White Supremacist terrorist movement’s “political grievances,” but I would challenge the ideology of White Supremacy in rejecting our shared human rights.

The correct approach would be this: Let’s examine what they claim their grievances are, and then determine if they are valid grievances that should be addressed. The white supremacists grievance is something to the effect that “white genocide” is taking place. That’s an irrational fantasy that can be dismissed out of hand.

Check what the perpetrators of different attacks in the west say. It varies, but a common theme is that the US/NATO is bringing violence and oppression to the Middle East. I think it’s pretty easy to determine if that’s true or not, and whether violence is something people don’t like to see others like them being subjected to.

Alright, let’s take 9/11. Bin Laden said motives included everything from US troops in Saudi Arabia to sanctions against Iraq.

Recently, KSM sent a letter to Obama. In it, he gives a pretty comprehensive overview of US history. One example: “Before 9/11, the Mujahedeen asked you to lift the unjust sanctions against Iraq, the sanctions
that you and the West imposed and which caused the death of a million women and children.”

I not familiar with the manifesto you reference by Ayman Al Zawahiri, but I’m willing to bet he’s said a lot more than what you’re claiming.

Well, Jose I think you should be familiar with such sn important matter if you intend to understand Muslim terrorism. Al Qaeda Manisfeto can be found in
“Knights under the Prophet Banner” by Ayman Al Zawahiri first published in October 2001. I am not claiming. This is exactly what the book states.

Of course, Al Qaeda stated many grievances. White supremacists stated many grievances as well. One of them being the prevention of African migrants to Europe because European countries do not have the capability to take care of so many poor people.

I asked you for a specific grievance to make it easy: “the US is trying to remove Islam”. What should we do about this specific grievance.

If that specific grievance is too complicated for you, then let’s use one of the clear grievances of ISIS against the West that can be found in their magazine Dabiq 15th edition: Westerners are atheists. So what do we do about that grievance?

It looks like the book entitled “Misunderstanding Terrorism” is doing exactly that misunderstands terrorism.
I can’t blame author for misleading readers. It is true, author seems to show us how to misunderstand terrorism at least from those bits and pieces reported.

I will try to write below something about “Understanding Terrorism” for a change and up front ask questions that most of the people in the west asked themselves.

Is Islam really an evil religion that has to be eradicated from face of the Earth, a religion of Holy war and terrorism?

Well, before we all dig our graves, lock and load to get our Christian 50 virgins and instant sainthood upon death as our predecessors 800 years ago let think for a second whether or not such an action has any sense at all.

The problem is that people are completely confused and do not realize that faith and organized religion are two different things having nothing to do with one another whatsoever. And they must stop quoting their “Holy” books. There is nothing in there that could possibly explain or truly provide any sociopolitical and economic background and motivation for terrorism, understood as a common, old war tactic from before three main religions were even established. Whatever it is and however we may call it, Islamic, Christian, Hindu and Shinto terrorism does not matter at all.

The fundamental historical fact is that any organized religion serves one purpose: to provide a propaganda justification for specific form of governance and specific ruling elites inheritable or not, who happens to rule. In turn ruling elite provides material foundation of the organized religion and submit to some formalities and symbolism that would further reinforce among population dogmas that supposedly founded the religion in question.

No wonder that three major world religions shared core of foundational dogmas while developed widely different tradition serving variety of ruling elite, different geographical areas and under different sociopolitical or economic pressures.

The religious institutions by the fact of being eternal like corporations, unlike kings who were mortal in most part, enforced their diverging traditions on much longer scale and later become incorporated in so-called state dogmas or canons that had to be followed by any upcoming new rulers since religious institutions gained some state authority regardless continuation and enforcement of specific structure of the state, to variable degrees fused into the state functions like judicial or educational or cultural prerogatives.

This character and strength of fusion between religious institution and state varied throughout the history, nations and geographic regions, some like Eastern Orthodox church of Byzantium retained close affinity and even submissive relations to the power elites while western Christian or Catholic church retained more external form of influence even sometimes direct domination over divided kingdoms of western Europe being often an arbiter in the matters of state and inter-state relations.

Islamic religion institutions while more diverse chose similar path of sometimes dominating the state affairs while another time like in case of Ottoman empire being fully controlled by it and it was in such cases when the Islamic tradition was perceived as progressive and tolerant while in fact it was explicit policy of the state, so religion was to provide justifications of more progressive or tolerant policies of the state itself.

Soon all religion institutions developed their own monopolies or oligopolies regarding the only appropriate interpretation of their Holy books as far as religious social and sometime even state matters were concerned. In fact that was number one reason for religious schisms followed by excommunications, exclusion or even fatwas or condemnations, convictions for religious crimes for blasphemy, deviation from Holy teachings like in case of prosecutions by Sacred Holy Roman Inquisition in Europe, mostly political prosecutions under the guise religious crimes.

In other words they developed their own religious scholarship that determined official religious truth and/or canons variably depending on given historical time and place, as well as a path foreword of religion and form of religious institutions that would support it. So Catholics have their Pope, Eastern Orthodox Church had their patriarch committee to proclaim absolute truth to their congregations.
However, in case if Islamic institutions the split in religious scholarship was so deep that several leading centers of religious scholarship emerged with their own often conflicting scholarship traditions mostly based of local master-apprentice transference of religious authority and in contrast to the Christianity where scholarly authority was universal, the authority of Islamic religion and in some part Jewish religion was mostly local or regional.

Long before European reformation within some ME Islamic states there were sometimes multiple of Islamic religious scholarships existing often cited as causing of religious wars but also resulting in some accommodations of rival religious institutions within the state in a form of protection or tolerance often associated with restrictions or taxes.

The fact is that as a matter of historical record one cannot assess in convincing manner particular proclivities for wars, religious or not, of one organized religion over another.

In the end, covered by some “God Given” propaganda and justifications for this or that war, all of that, through centuries, was about organized religion supporting war even extensively participating in it directly via religious figures physically fighting or showing it’s peaceful side when war was not in their (and government) godly interests.

Not particularity out of ideological differences, many different “fake” religions, Islamic-like cults such as Takfiris or Whahhabists or as often wrongly characterized old Suni-Shia schism, which was just splitting of main religious tradition that could not be reconciled under different system of governance and state control, were proliferating in the ME as well as in Africa.

These so-called Islamic cults were just small communities or outright family based groups that in fact worshiped what they wanted, since lived in remote areas of deserts or mountains out of reach of sword of the official religious authorities claiming the particular area as its own.

One of examples of attitude of official state religion authorities towards cults can be found in Ottoman Empire [OE] reports from first decade of XX century that characterized the Saudis tribe worshiping Wahhabism (future kings of Saudi Arabia) as a cult of desert thieves and murderers living from robbery of desert camel trains or caravans.

In fact at that time although robberies were real problem of OE transportation system nobody labeled them terrorists (true that Saudis practiced beheading of the travelers when at that time it was legal, considered humane state recognized punishment method for thieves and killers, in comparison of tearing apart by horses or impalement considered barbaric) and certainly not Islamic Terrorists since officially they were not believing in Islam but were blasphemers for even claiming that.

In fact such cults were popping out in different areas over ME and remote central Asia but never recognized by major religion centers as legitimate, in fact they survived centuries by passing special Islamic cult canons from one member of community or family to another and not associated with any government but a tribal self-governance.

This situation was quite different than in Europe where religious domination reached all the administrative areas of the medieval states and hence norms of the religion center were enforced widely and conflicts among Christian communities were resolved often not by violence and eradication but by a canonical law and endless religious litigation, as it was in interest of rulers as well as religious leadership who wanted to preserve church unity and it worked until reformation.

In this Islamic tradition of forming multiple cults that may survive for years, decades or even centuries unconnected to any major religious centers, what we are facing now, the “religious” credentials of terrorists like Al-Qaeda or ISIS are nothing but credentials of cultists with no authority whosoever among Muslims at large.

So why are we even talking about that?

Well we should not but since some of those cults desert thieves like Saudi elites command $trillions they started to matter not only among Muslims but also for population in the world which interests are tied to Saudi capital investments.

So average Muslim in ME instead of dismissing ridiculous Wahhabism and its militant forms against Islam and other religions, he listens not because he believes in that but because company he works for is funded by Saudis and a perspective of loosing job for criticizing the hand that feeds him would not be prudent but rather detrimental to his career.

In this context only we may understand what the ISIS religious claims are all about and what they mean and why ISIS (formed by secularists Iraqis or even Chechens with western money) religious credentials have been repudiated all over the world, more in a quiet fashion, even by Saudi Arabian religious authorities mostly quietly aware of sensitivities of the Saudis global economic and political reach and their dubious geopolitically driven decisions of supporting financially and militarily of those very cults that they themselves call illegitimate.

This apparent silence of Islamic religious centers about fallacy of Islamic teachings of ISIS and Al-Qeada is primarily for political considerations of material survival of those religious authorities trying to downplay un-Islamic policies of their governments on which they depend. It’s hard to explain killing a pious Muslim by a member of some cult that government supports, in any religious terms but condemnation, so Islamic clerics are just in most part silenced.

So instead calling Islam a religion of death and war which sometime it was and other time it was not as I mentioned above, what is the key to eliminate ME terrorists is to cut funding which is not religious but a geopolitical matter or even better eliminate that Saudi Arabian state, a construct straight from dark ages more precisely to take away their money so they would not command “money induced religious and economic credibility” and hence cease influencing ME streets.

History shows that if one attacks religions one must brace oneself for 100 years bloody war or more that will not solve the very political problems that underlie the conflict that leads those who want to address it via means of war and intimidation to evoke phony religious inspirations, as a simple recruiting too for achieving political ends of their sponsors.

For clarity, all religions must be removed from discourse about global terrorists and focusing instead on intentions of sponsors of terrorism as a tactic of political/military/economic expansion of global imperial regimes and that includes US political tactics of terrorism as a US regime being dominating imperial force.
No religion modification, eradication or domination will ever provide any solution to a purely political problem of hegemony of one state or elite over another state and their people.

No need to look for war in any of world’s holy books since it is already in hearts of those who lust for power and dominance regardless of any religious fig leaf they choose to cover their abhorrent aggression.

The author of this article is much too naive to write anything worthwhile on this simple subject. No one in his right mind has any illusions about stopping any terror activity. The intention is to keep this activity in perpetual motion, which we have seen has the immense benefit of generating a lot of beautiful economic activity that would otherwise not happen due to our inherent laziness and complacence. We hope that sometime in the very near future after it generates sufficient momentum there will no longer be any need to forcibly sustain it by organized terror events.

The war on terror is a sham. It is akin to the Red Scare during the cold war. Talking about a more “rational” take on fighting terror just legitimizes the scam. The US and its Allies have sought to undermine and destroy secular arab nationalism since Nasser was president of Egypt. They have largely suceeded and in the wake of their victories they have sown murder and chaos. The real and rational end to islamic terror will come when the currupt regimes in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf have been deposed and replaced by something faintly democratic and popular. Until then, nothing will change.

“with the exception of many criminals, bullies, and other people who have already behaved violently or abusively, the majority of psychologically normal people are “sleepers”-that is, they are dispositionally inclined, when the situation is right, to aggression and destructiveness. Their patterns of thought and behavior are to be understood stood dispositionally, that is, in the conditional sense that, if an adequately provoking situation arises, then the behavior that results will tend to be malignant: they have a pathogenic willingness to inflict harm, which remains latent until an appropriate situation arises. Such a situation may, for example, come in the form of war, ideological conflict, unrestricted power over others (as in an inadequately supervised prison), narcissistic injury, or in many other ways. Such “adequately provoking situations” unfortunately, as we know, arise with great frequency and prevalence”

“Normality Does Not Equal Mental Health” by Steven James Bartlett

As I understand this, radical Islam are not the only ones who are sleepers. Many people are predisposed to kill others, even their own family, out of rage, economic distress, or depression. Then you have fatal attraction types, road rage, school shootings, domestic violence, in addition to other forms of religious ideologies that beleive it’s Ok to kill others and even extreme forms of patriotism that feel likewise. So the real issue here is not terrorism itself, but the socio economic, cultural, and political environment in which we live that creates all manner of sleepers. The only way to eradicate it would be in making this world a better place to live for all not just our preferred race.

“Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather, they hate our policies.”

– Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication, U.S. Department of Defense, at the request of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld – September 2004:

“If there is one overarching goal they share, it is the overthrow of what Islamists call the ‘apostate’ regimes: the tyrannies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, and the Gulf states. They are the main target of the broader Islamist movement, as well as the actual fighter groups. The United States finds itself in the strategically awkward, and potentially dangerous, situation of being the longstanding prop and alliance partner of these authoritarian regimes. Without the U.S. these regimes could not survive….Americans have inserted themselves into this intra-Islamic struggle in ways that have made us an enemy to most Muslims…

There is no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-U.S. groundswell among Muslim societies except to be liberated perhaps from what they see as apostate tyrannies that the U.S. so determinedly promotes and defends. [emphasis in original]…the perception of intimate U.S. support of tyrannies in the Muslim World is perhaps the critical vulnerability in American strategy. It strongly undercuts our message, while strongly promoting that of the enemy.

American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies.

Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies. [emphasis added] The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.

Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that ‘freedom is the future of the Middle East’ is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like the enslaved peoples of the old Communist World, but Muslims do not feel this way: they feel oppressed, but not enslaved.

Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. U.S. actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self- determination.

Therefore, the dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of an Umma (the entire Muslim community) invaded and under attack, to broad public support.”

The list of groups who hate US policies is very long. Nothing in that report proves that Muslims join terrorist groups BECAUSE they hate US policies. Many Muslims hate homosexuals but do not try to kill them.

James-“there is a very rapacious “security” industry making money off the perception that the threat is constant.”

YES! These “security industry” deviants are creating cases from whole cloth, and then kicking the cases up to local cops or the DHS. There is zero accountability, and they have full access to the NSA troves.

And many of these companies aren’t even owned by US citizens, as Israeli’s benefit from much of the DHS ‘private contractor’ black budgets.

David-
“People choose to follow the quran, which tells them to kill anyone who does not follow muhammad”

David- do people like you even read your own holy books- the Talmud/Torah/Bible? These books are every bit as fanatical, and moreso because they have so far managed to perpetrate mass homicides/genocides for millennia.

Apparently you are in favor of all of the Jewchristian mandates of constant conquest for the glory of the lord? And Israel, of course, which is known for it’s compassionate care of those who they torture, murder, or otherwise violate against every UN treaty or convention.

After all- these two wonderful and compassionate religions each get one half of The Jesus. Splitting the baby worked out so well there, they are afraid of competition- or splitting the Jesus in a three way.

Identity politics may be one reason for overestimating a threat, but the deliberate theatricality, w dramatic video etc., of attacks is another. And of course, there is a very rapacious “security” industry making money off the perception that the threat is constant.

It is as simple as this: People choose to follow the quran, which tells them to kill anyone who does not follow muhammad. They choose to believe that they will have an eternal reward for killing non-muslims.

that ignores the role that the us has had in invading their countries and toppling their governments, something which also prompted terrorism against the invading nazis in europe in ww2, or the brits in ireland, without even a hint of it being caused by the local religion.

You couldn’t possibly have read the Quran with that ignorant comment. I would be surprised if you had close relationships with Muslims as well. Many of you are too confident about your ignorance. You don’t even know that you don’t know and the less you know is worn as a badge of honor. Who lives like that and why? There’s nothing to be gained from ignorance or confirmation bias.

This is how politicians manipulate people. They can fill in the blanks with anything because the average person will never make a sincere attempt to confirm their information. And, once most people get to the age of 38 or older, if their lives don’t require them to interact regularly with other cultures, travel or seek out new experiences, their worldview becomes narrow in scope.

The people making policies about terrorism can’t even understand cultures who listen to heavy metal, rap, abstract jazz and dub in our country. You expect them to understand people from a different country, with different cultural experiences? It’s not impossible to understand, it’s that they lack imagination and refuse to relate organically because, America. Such arrogance will, eventually destroy us.

We have been through this many times. Ialamic scholars Oman Abdel Rahman and Al Baghdadi believed that Quran verse 2:191 allow Muslims to use violence against “infidels”. That include Christians, Jews and Shia Muslims according to them.

You can tell us your own interpretation or other scholars’ views, but religion is not a science. Only your God can decide which interpretation is the right one.

Here is a translation of verse 2:190 (you know, the one before 2:191):

“AND FIGHT in God’s cause against those who wage war against you, but do not commit aggression – for, verily, God does not love aggressors.”

2:191 does not present a complete thought. You have to read 2:190 first. And what 2:190 is very, very clear:

It lays down unequivocally that only self-defense (in the widest sense of the word) makes war permissible for Muslims.

And, it commands that one DOES NOT COMMIT AGGRESSION!!!!!

So if you didn’t bother to read 2:191 yourself, how could one expect you to read it together with 2:190?

And if you didn’t bother to read 2:190-191 yourself how could one expect you to read them in conjunction with 22:39, which says, “PERMISSION [to fight] is given to those against whom war is being wrongfully waged…”, which makes it even clearer that fighting is allowed only in self-defense.

And if you read 2:191 yourself, you’d know that it is talking about hostilities already in progress. Furthermore, 2:191 is clearly talking about those who were driven away from their homes and had no choice but to fight against oppression.

So the Quran is not giving anyone a free license to kill anyone. It is within the context of:

a) Oppression
b) Driven away from their own homes

And with these conditions:

a) Self-defense
b) Hostilities already in progress
c) No AGGRESSION
d) God’s CAUSE ONLY (that is, NOT for causes for other-than-God, e.g., ego, desires for power and control, in the cause of the ethical principles ordained by God, etc.)

You can look at what this or that scholar says,

OR

You can look at the translations of the Quran to get an idea of what the Quran is actually saying.

You are doing exactly the same thing, which is to tell me what your interpretation of the Quran is.
I will have to tell you the same thing again: I DO NOT CARE WHETHER THE QURAN OR THE BIBLE PROMOTE VIOLENCE. I don’t believe in neither of them.

The problem is not me. The problem is that scholars x, y, z believe the Quran justifies violence while scholars a, b, c and you believe it does not. RELIGION IS NOT A SCIENCE. You can be as right (wrong) as the other scholars. But I do not care whether you are right or wrong because I don’t believe in the Quran anyway!

I cannot speak for all Westerners, but I believe it is the key point you are not willing to grasp. Most Westerners do not care whether you are right or Mohammed Omar is right about what the Quran says. Everybody can be right (wrong) because it is a religion. Most Westerners care about their SAFETY. They do not care you belief the Sun is a God as long as you are peaceful. If you believe the Sun is a God giving you orders to kill them, then they will have a problem with you not because of your belief about the sun, but because you want to kill them.

This is a PUBLIC comment section. Everybody can respond to whatever you write. You can ignore others, but no one has to ignore you.

“What is it that you want to discuss with me?”

A commenter suggested that the Quran promotes violence. You challenged him to prove it through Quranic verses. I provided the Quranic verses that ACCORDING TO ISLAMIC SCHOLARS do promote violence. Not according to me! Again, I do not care whether the Quran promotes violence.

Your typical answer again is to tell us YOUR INTERPRETATION of those Quranic verses. You have no way to prove that your interpretation is the correct one as opposed to Mohammad Omar’s interpretation. So, telling us your interpretation or like you want to say ” what the Quran says” do not make that commenter wrong. He can be as right (wrong) as you think you are.

This is a PUBLIC comment section. Everybody can respond to whatever you write. You can ignore others, but no one has to ignore you.

That doesn’t answer my question.

What is it that you want to discuss with me?

You answered:

A commenter suggested that the Quran promotes violence. You challenged him to prove it through Quranic verses. I provided the Quranic verses that ACCORDING TO ISLAMIC SCHOLARS do promote violence. Not according to me! Again, I do not care whether the Quran promotes violence.

I DID NOT ask him to PROVE anything.

I asked him to present the relevant Quranic verses so I could analyze them, that is, analyze the verses of the Quran he’d present, WITHOUT any interpretations.

He has not.

Again, I am not interested in discussing what this or that scholar says. We have been through this before.

It is a matter of WHAT THE QURAN ITSELF SAYS. NOT WHAT THIS OR THAT SCHOLAR SAYS.

If you do not care what THE QURAN SAYS, then why do you routinely respond to me and engage in a discussion with me?

Do YOU think the Quran promotes violence?

If you don’t care what YOU think, then what is the point of us having a discussion?

My argument would be childish if you pinpoint a strong weakness from it. You have not. Your biggest weakness is to believe that you know the Quran more than anybody else here. You do not. That is what you put into your mind.

1) If you are repeating what the Quran says, you are just reading the Quran, then you are not analyzing the Quran as you claim. Children in good schools know the difference between reading and analyzing. If you want to perform a reading session of the Quran, then go for it, but do not claim you want to “analyze” verses. Are you aware of the difference between reading and analyzing?

2) Those verses are the ones among others used by terrorists to justify violence. They are consistent with what the commenter stated above.

3) You need to tone down your arrogance and attempt to understand what others are saying. The Quran says to use violence in self defense. What is self defense? Self defense for me is based on domestic and international laws. The Taliban has a completely different view of self defense. You probably have a different view of self defense. The same applies for oppression, aggression…etc. THIS IS A FACT. Attacking me would not change it.

4) My argument has always been clear. You cannot prove anybody that your interpretation of the Quran is better than scholars Mohammed Omar, Al Baghdadi who disagree with you. You cannot because Islam is a religion not a science. Attacking the commenter does not change that point. Anytime you write a comment suggesting that you know better than scholars who are terrorists then I have the right to challenge you. This is a PUBLIC FORUM. You can ignore me, but I do not have to ignore you.

Again, if you want a reading session of the Quran, then go for it. Just do not say let’s “analyze”. It suggests you do not know the difference between reading and analyzing.

No, I am not. This is a PUBLIC FORUM. That means everybody can get in a discussion whether you like it or not. It cannot be that hard to understand. If you wish a private discussion with a private commenter then you should get that commenter’s email/phone.

“Are you interested as well?”

It cannot be that hard to understand! I do not care whether the Quran promotes violence or not. I know there are scholars who believe it does and others who believe it does not. Both groups can be right or wrong. It is a religion not a science. Again, my point has always been that you are incapable of proving that you are right and they are wrong.

“So I invite you to take the high road.”

PUBLIC FORUM. NOBODY IS UNDER ANY OBLIGATION TO IGNORE YOU.

“I thought you didn’t care what the Quran said.
“So, now you agree that the Quran’s sanction of violence in self- defense?”

Learn the difference between KNOWING about something and CARING about something. Example: I know what a sport car is, but I don’t care about getting one. I know what medical science is, but I don’t care about learning it. So, I know what the Quran says, but I don’t care about what it means because I don’t believe in it. Seriously it cannot be that hard.

“it is a matter of what is it that the TEXT OF THE QURAN IS SAYING!”

OMG!!! Is it really that hard to understand?
When US laws state “self defense” is allowed, the laws describe what “self defense” is, it clearly explains what actions constitute self defense and in what circumstances. That is the same for international laws.
The Quran is a religious book. When Mohammed Omar reads self defense is allowed in the Quran he can disregard what international laws state about self defense. Self defense for individual X can be completely different to Individual Y. Really it cannot be that hard to understand!

Example. The Bible says you cannot lie. Telling you I was in Florida while I was in NY is a lie. An punishabke sin according the Bible. However, according to US laws I did not do anything wrong. I have to say the same thing under oath in order for my statement to be a lie (perjury). So, lying for individual X who believes in the Bible is completely different from individual Y who does not believe in the Bible but cares about the law.

You cannot prove anybody that your interpretation of the Quran is better than…

My interpretation takes into consideration Quran’s textual and historical context and is applied through the higher consciousness.

There are those interpretations that are literal (i.e., do not take Quran’s textual and historical context) and are applied by many through the lower consciousness. The results of such interpretations are crystal clearly bad to evil.

I don’t agree with them.

If you fail to see how my interpretation is better then there is nothing I can do except to suggest that perhaps the Quran is talking about you when it says that there are those who are “deaf, dumb and blind” (i.e., spiritually).

Do you think you are spiritually deaf, dumb and blind?

If not, then you should have no problem seeing how my interpretation is better.

“Quran is talking about you when it says that there are those who are “deaf, dumb and blind” (i.e., spiritually).”

Your insults do not improve your argument. They say more about you than about me.
Mohammed Omar, Al Zawahiri would certainly call you “deaf, dumb and blind”. They spent their whole life studying the Quran and practicing Islam. According to them Quran verses came from God through the Angel. Therefore, people like you (humans) have no authority to tell them about textual or historical context. None of you can prove why your interpretations are better than the other.

Non Muslims accept your interpretation because you don’t want to kill them. It does not mean they believe you understand the Quran better than Mohammed Omar. Most of them probably don’t even care about what the Quran says.

“Quran is talking about you when it says that there are those who are “deaf, dumb and blind” (i.e., spiritually).”

Your insults do not improve your argument. They say more about you than about me.

You did exactly what I had expected: you quoted me out of context. This is what you do with the Quran too.

Here are my full statements:

If you fail to see how my interpretation is better then there is nothing I can do except to suggest that perhaps the Quran is talking about you when it says that there are those who are “deaf, dumb and blind” (i.e., spiritually).

Do you think you are spiritually deaf, dumb and blind?

If not, then you should have no problem seeing how my interpretation is better.

“So you think that their interpretation of the Quran and Islam are the most legitimate?”

OMG! OMG! OMG!

Have you read anything I wrote?

NEITHER YOU NOR ANYBODY ELSE CAN PROVE A INTERPRETATION IS BETTER.
Do you understand that statement? Really, it cannot be that difficult!!!

“And then you say “people like you (humans) have no authority to tell them …”

Do you see your childish contradiction here?

You have a serious difficulty understanding what others are saying.
It is not me who say humans have no authority to tell them…THIS IS THE CONCLUSION THAT OTHER SCHOLARS SUCH AS MOHAMMED OMAR AND AL BAGHDADI GOT TO BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THOSE VERSES CAME FROM GOD. THE CONTEXT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT IS IRRELEVANT TO THEM.

“they are simply wrong.”

That is YOUR opinion. That does not mean you are right!

“Which of these two interpretations is better in your view?”

I pick interpretation A because it is PEACEFUL. Both interpretations can be wrong (right). Most non Muslims accept your interpretation because it is peaceful. Most of them probably don’t know and don’t care about what the Quran says.

It is amusing when you express your inability to face challenges by calling others childish.

Not “to me”. To 50% of Non Muslims in Russia, US, Western Europe Muslims are “violent”. To 58% Muslims are “fanatical” and only 22% believe Muslims are “respectful of women”. (Muslim and Islam, Pew Research Center, February 2017)

P.S. I do not “whine”. I report commenters who disregard the policies of TI. Example your pal Mona who called me “idiots” “imbeciles” “morons” “somebody with Mad Cow Disease” “racists” “Masochists”. Name calling do not bring anything to civilized discussions. However, I doubt you get that point as you rushed to describe me as childish for writing “checkmate” while you have consistently ignored her despicable insults. I wonder why? Maybe because she agrees with you.

I have consistently repeated that neither your understanding of the Quran nor Omar, Al Qaeda’s understanding is relevant to me because none of you can present a valid argument as to why an interpretation is the right one. It is a religion not a science. Maybe you should improve your understanding of logic to grasp my point.

“But YOU cared enough to bring it up and even refer to Quran 2:191.”

Again, learn the difference between KNOWING and CARING. Example: I know the Christians Ten Commandments, but I do not care about them. One day you might be able to grasp that difference.

I have consistently repeated that neither your understanding of the Quran nor Omar, Al Qaeda’s understanding is relevant to me because none of you can present a valid argument as to why an interpretation is the right one.

Only a spiritually deaf, dumb and blind person is incapable of understanding which interpretation is valid and better, and which is not.

The problem is your own inner self.

If you cannot see the difference between an interpretation that is close to the spirit of the text and language, takes into consideration textual and historical context, and is applied through the higher consciousness taking into consideration contemporary situation and what is appropriate for our times, and consider it valid over others, then you have a serious issue of your own spiritual heart.

“So if you didn’t bother to read 2:191 yourself, how could one expect you to read it together with 2:190?”

Your arrogance say more about yourself than it says about me.

“So the Quran is not giving anyone a free license to kill anyone. It is within the context of:”

Again, you are giving us your interpretation. “Oppression” means several things for different people. Teaching European history in Nigeria constitutes “oppression” for Boko Haram. Killing Jews in Argentina constitutes “self defense” for Hezbollah. Preventing Shias from spreading their ideology is “God Cause” for the Taliban. RELIGION IS NOT A SCIENCE. You have absolutely no way of proving your interpretation is better than Boko Haram’s.

“The verses 2:190 and 2:191 are clear. Look at them without any interpretation.”

That is a weird statement. Every single religious scripture is open to interpretation. The reader must know what oppression, self defense, war, God cause mean…

“If you don’t care about what you think about the above, then, again, what is it that you want to discuss with me?”

Killing an humanitarian aid worker constitutes self defense for the Taliban. Teaching European history in Afghanistan and Nigeria constitutes oppression for the Taliban and Boko Haram. If you think oppression, self defense, God Causes mean exactly the same thing for different people, then you are living in a complete different universe.

Countries are run by laws that define what self defense is, what oppression is. The Taliban sincerely believe that destroying schools is self defense and God cause. According to international laws it is a crime. It is completely irrelevant whether you believe it is not self defense and the Taliban believes it is. The law establishes what self defense is. Not the Quran.

“The verses 2:190 and 2:191 are clear. Look at them without any interpretation.”

That is a weird statement. Every single religious scripture is open to interpretation. The reader must know what oppression, self defense, war, God cause mean…

What do YOU think oppression and self-defense mean?

Here is the textual of 2:191 which YOU are the one who brought up:

(190) AND FIGHT in God’s cause against those who wage war against you, but do not commit aggression – for, verily, God does not love aggressors.

(191) And slay them wherever you may come upon them, and drive them away from wherever they drove you away – for oppression is even worse than killing.

And fight not against them near the Inviolable House of Worship unless they fight against you there first; but if they fight against you, slay them: such shall be the recompense of those who deny the truth.

(192) But if they desist – behold, God is much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace.

(193) Hence, fight against them until there is no more oppression and all worship is devoted to God alone; but if they desist, then all hostility shall cease, save against those who [willfully] do wrong.

What do YOU read in these words WITHOUT any interpretation?

Before one gets to INTERPRETATION, one can clearly see that the text of the Quran is talking about self-defense and fighting against the oppressors.

Soooo Murtaza, guess you forgot or didn’t wanna ask Marc Sagema, about the CIA Madrassa textbooks printed at the Univ. of Nebraska and distributed to madrassas through the The Caucus region.. Yep, these textbooks were so good, the Taliban used them ..lol!
Didn’t you ask Marc Sagema if he ever met Fethullah Gülen? Yeah, this guy had CIA guys working at his schools posing as English teachers..lol..

the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.
The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code.

Printed both in Pashto and Dari, Afghanistan’s two major languages, books such as “The Alphabet for Jihad Literacy” were produced under the auspices of the U.S. Agency for International Development by the University of Nebraska at Omaha and smuggled into Afghanistan through networks built by the CIA and Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, the ISI.

Just wondering how many of the people this CIA guy talked to after he “retired” , were taught with the CIA textbooks

Curious. That is not what the terrorists who are killing civilians over there are saying. They are saying they kill those civilians over there because those civilians are “infidels”. I wonder whether those terrorists will stop killing the “infidels” over there if Americans stop fighting over there.

What you should be “wondering” is why that killing increased by orders of magnitude following the intervention of the US and other Western powers, starting with the post-WWI period and growing from that point.

I love when you guys attempt to re write history to sneak your poor arguments in. How far in history do you want to go?
Massacres of “infidels” in the first century?
Massacres of Sunnis in the 16th Century?
Massacres of Christians in Lebanon/Syria in 1860?

Thousands of people killed, villages and towns decimated.
Do you have your own version of history as well?

Everyone who reads or writes history has, more or less, her own version.

I’m willing to go as far back as you like, but the post-WWI period when the Allies divvied up the spoils of the defeated Ottoman Empire seems like a logical point to begin analysis of modern trends.

You’re in over your head, Cheesy. You’ll never admit it, because you’ll never be able to recognize it. Consequently, when better-informed interlocutors end up getting bored and walking away from arguments with you, you think you’ve won.

I expect it’s a permutation of the “ignorance is bliss” adage.”

BTW, to which “massacres of ‘infidels’ in the first century” do you refer? It can hardly have anything to do with Islam (a few centuries early for that), so maybe you speak of the alleged persecution of Christians in the wake of the burning of Rome (during which Nero was, apparently, actually absent).

I am having a hard time choosing the most amusing part: 1) when you guys attack the commenter to hide your poor arguments or 2) when you want to re write history to fit your poor arguments.

Feel free to have your own version of history, but you cannot have your own facts. You claimed civilians deaths have increased exponentially as a result of Western intervention after WWI. Well:
a) Pardon me Mr. Doug I meant the 10th Century not the 1st. Massacre of “infidels” in Granada in 1066. Approximately 4,000 deaths.
b) Massacre of Sunnis in Iran/Azerbaijan 16th Century. Up to 20.000 killed by different accounts
C) Massacres of Christians in Lebanon/Syria (1860). Up to 12,000 killed by different accounts.

Do you want more examples of massacres decades before WWI or you prefer doing what you do best: attack the commenter, call yourself smart and run away?

I do not consider Obama or Trump as terrorists. If you do, then tell us
1) why Al Zawahiri, Al Baghdadi, Obama and Trump are the same?
2) why you are in the US paying taxes to terrorists while you are free to leave?

I highly recommend that others who do not care about my opinion to ignore it and move to the next. In your case, it is obviously not that you do not care about my opinion it is rather that you are incapable of presenting a solid argument.

“You might disagree with them, but I am not sure others should care about your opinion on how they call themselves.”

and

“I highly recommend that others who do not care about my opinion to ignore it and move to the next. In your case, it is obviously not that you do not care about my opinion it is rather that you are incapable of presenting a solid argument.”

I would argue that it’s capitalism but not just capitalism. We seem to be living in a paternalistic death cult and it’s hard to see how that can end well. However, it behooves us to not overlook the true impetus for the current situation as this path predates (in every sense of the word) capitalism.

Us vs THEM is the secret method of the dumb&dumbers that run the US gov. Divide and conquer – like the moron of wisconsin told his pimp – is the way of the US. This has been going on since Guatemala vs United Fruit. If the dumb&dumbers can find a better way to disapear people they will. Right now their practice ground is Yemen since murdering Palestinians is backfiring. The US went to war against Adolf Hitler because he was succeeding where the US failed, he was “stepping on their toes” by taking back the banks but the US waited until Hitler completed his disappear them program against Jewish persons. The US will claim they had no idea Jewish persons were being disappeared but on the type of advice of Edward Bernays, they lied.

War is expensive. Someone has pay. The people who pay expect a return on their investment. So … who is profiting from war in the Middle East? Answer that question truthfully and you will be a long way toward understanding why wars continue. (Hint: It isn’t the middle class in any country.)

I had a Russian colleague once and asked her how the Afghan fighters were referred to in Russia?

She quickly said, “Terrorists”.

So, could it be that today’s Muslim terrorists are being called Jihadists because they are fighting the West and some people don’t want to call them Mujahideen because that would associate the term Mujahideen with the term Terrorists and it would in turn mean that the Afghan fighters who fought for the West would then be considered terrorists?

See my point?

I doubt these Muslim terrorists call themselves Jihadists because why would they want to use an Anglicized term?

I am sure they refer to themselves as Mujahideen.

So, if one makes the argument that the journalists should call them whatever they call themselves, then perhaps they should double-check with these terrorists. And if they prefer to call themselves Mujahideen then these journalists should follow their own logic and call them Mujahideen.

And if that taints the Afghan fighters who fought against Russian with the Western support, then so be it.

Hi Sufi. I’ve been under the impression that the word ‘jihad’ is more ascribed to a personal ‘struggle’ as opposed to an Anglicized ‘terrorist’ association. As in, a moral dilemma and such. I suppose co-opting a term for ones angle is pretty par for the course these days.

“So, could it be that today’s Muslim terrorists are being called Jihadists because they are fighting the West and some people don’t want to call them Mujahideen…”

No. I do not see your point for the following reasons:

1) Those terrorists CALLED THEMSELVES jihadists. Example A: Ayman Al Zawahiri published the Al Qaeda manifesto in 2001: ” Knights under the Prophet Banner”. He explicilitly calls members of Al Qaeda “jihadists”.
Example B: in the magazine Dabiq ISIS called its members and followers “jihadists” who have to fight “crusaders” and “infidels”.

2) Jihad is an Arabic name. There is an English translation to Jihad, but the word can mean different things for different people. For Al Qaeda it means war against Christians and Jews who according to Al Zawahiri want to destroy Islam. Whether that meaning is correct is a completely different debate.

3) A terrorist blows up a bus packed with civilians. He knew there were civilians but he targeted them and killed them anyway. It does not matter whether he calls himself an angel, a savior, a prophet, a jihadist, or a mujadeen. He is a terrorist. The Talibans are not called terrorists because they fight the Afghan Army or the US Army. They are called terrorists because they specifically target and kill civilians.

The sad thing is that many decisionmakers no doubt know that terrorism is best fought by expanding the “in-group”. Look at how Europe successfully put an end to the Communist terrorism of groups like the Rote Armee Fraktion, Action Directe etc. Through ordinary police work, and without stigmatizing or harassing ordinary Communists or their parties and organizations. The backers of the terror groups started feeling disgust at the blood the latter were spilling the more so since the state was not responding with the kind of hardhandedness they had been hoping for; there was no growth of a police state, no worker dissatisfaction therewith, no chance of the revolution all this was supposed to ignite. And it fizzled out.

So we do know how to go about it, because we’ve already done the right thing and it worked. Why is the approach to islamic terrorism so different? I can’t help but think it’s deliberate. That creating ethnic tension is the aim, not an unfortunate by-effect. That terrorism comforts the state and certain political parties in their power, and that they’re not as eager to make it stop as they say.

It is likely that ‘Islamic terrorism’ could be ended through the same process that ‘Irish terrorism’ was, but do you see it as possible for ANY American President or government even hinting that it would be willing to start such a process in today’s social climate in the US.

Dr. Sageman made some very good points specially in his statistical models. However, his solution is very simplistic.

” In the United States, Sageman said that would mean “bringing everybody into the fold and saying that we’re all Americans, equally, and not just focusing exclusively on one group and defining them as suspicious and not completely part of the fold.”

1) Law enforcement in America already relied heavily on the Muslim community to fight Islamic terrorism

2) Take the example of ISIS. Its primary target has always been other Muslims. It did not even attempt to kill any Westerners for awhile. Yet, hundreds of Westerners left Europe to join it knowing very well the group was committing genocide against Muslims. The UK parliament even refused to bomb Syria, but British Muslims still went there to join ISIS. So, you cannot really conclude that case is the result of us non Muslim Westerners vs them, Western Muslims.

3) A government can pass laws that ensure equality to the highest possible extent, but no governments can prevent an individual from being a racist. A core element of western society is the right to be whatever you want including a racist. France has strong anti racism laws, provide subsidies to anti racism organizations, teaches the effects of colonialism in the countries it occupied for centuries, and was even against the war in Iraq. Nevertherless, Muslim terrorists attacked a private organization (CH) because it made fun of their prophet. French laws give Muslims the right to make fun of the Christian God or the Christian prophets, but those terrorists believed in their own laws. It seems to me that some Muslims do not want to be identified a French but as French Muslim.

“In his book “Misunderstanding Terrorism,” Sageman counts 66 Islamic jihadist terrorist plots in Western countries between 2002 and 2012″

Okay STOP RIGHT THERE! Why do only deaths in Western countries matter? As Andrew Bacevich notes in his recent excellent article:

Deaths that matter and deaths that don’t: Why do terrorist attacks that kill a handful of Europeans command infinitely more American attention than do terrorist attacks that kill far larger numbers of Arabs? A terrorist attack that kills citizens of France or Belgium elicits from the United States heartfelt expressions of sympathy and solidarity. A terrorist attack that kills Egyptians or Iraqis elicits shrugs. Why the difference? To what extent does race provide the answer to that question?

Here’s one reason among many that American media ignores this issue: U.S. foreign policy has facilitated certain brands of violent terrorism under the rubric of regime change via proxy forces for many decades, dating back to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (anti-Nasser) and of course including elements of the anti-Soviet Afghan war in the 1980s – right up to placid acceptance of the rise of ISIS with Saudi and Qatari assistance (plus quite a few transfers of U.S. weapons via the CIA ‘arm the moderates’ programs in Syria). These violent Wahhabi groups were viewed as a bulwark against Godless Soviet Communism really over the entire period 1950-1990; now they seem to be viewed as useful anti-Iranian, anti-Russian proxy forces.

Of course, the brand of violent Iranian-sponsored activity – Hezbollah – was not viewed the same way after the Iranian revolution of 1979, since the Iranians since the Shah are no longer aligned with U.S. foreign policy agendas, unlike Saudi Arabia. Hence, we see the Pentagon and State Department ignoring the fact that Saudi Arabia is clearly the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism – instead, Iran gets that label.

So here is the actual global picture, 2015, on which any analysis of terrorist activity should be based:http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/11774-number-terror-attacks-worldwide-dropped-13-2015
(1) There were 11,774 terrorist attacks in 92 countries last year.
(2) “Of the 28,328 people killed in terrorist attacks in 2015, 6,924 (24%) were perpetrators of terrorist attacks.”
(3) “74 percent of all deaths due to terrorist attacks took place in five countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria).”
(4) The number of attacks carried out by ISIL [Saudi/Qatar-sponsored] in Syria increased by 39 percent.

Since those are State Department numbers, drone strikes by the US are not counted as terrorist attacks, although many people view them as such; the estimate for 2015 seem to be as many as 100 drone strikes for that year, maybe 1000 killed.

You’d think the Intercept would understand this and not just regurgitate corporate media propaganda for domestic consumption. If this is a deliberate knowing choice on the part of Intercept editors, to publish this kind of thing, then those editors should be fired and replaced.

1) Western media organizations will always give more weight to what happened in western countries. Arab media organization will always give more weight to what happened in Arab countries.

2) Top Western media organizations have journalists on the ground in war zones giving you information about what is going on. They were in Iraq and Syria way before Western troops deployed there. Some of them even got KILLED in the process.

3) “Intercept editors, to publish this kind of thing, then those editors should be fired and replaced.”

I think the Intercept billed itself prominently as an “alternative” to the repetitive BS spewed out by neoliberal corporate media when it was founded. So why don’t the editors explain how it was they changed their mind on this and started going along with the NYT-Wapo narrative?

Or they could just do what the Guardian does and ban comments on foreign policy related articles and so on, that would be unsurprising.

It happens EVERYDAY in Syria etc!, and the 3 letter agencies Spy on Everyone regardless, all of your internets and phone activities is being recorded in the west regardless of if your from the Middle east or if your Caucasian or whatever

you want some kind of special privilege or exemption? lol

“But why does the threat of terrorism resonate so much more in the popular imagination than other dangers?”

Because the Globalists etc Police state uses terrorism in media to fear monger, as an excuse to Invade your homelands so they can build their gas pipelines and steal your resources, they also use it as an excuse to further expand their police state BS in the west on their own peoples

Clinton, Bush and Obama killed over a million, almost all civilians, in strikes against terrorists. Trump promised in his campaign to get away from nation building and hawking weapons, which seems to be the biggest reason he has been skewered by Insiders and the MSM. After firing the “beautiful” Tomahawks at Syria he has entered the neolib/neocon fold. The war has nothing to do with Terrorists, it is about big money for lobbyists, politicians and the MIC.

The Tomahawks appeared carefully designed to send an expositional message. The globalist MSM, briefly dazzled by it–which isn’t hard to do (he Rick Rolled their media all the time before the election)–is back to haranguing Trump the non-initiate every chance it gets.

Many terrorists do call themselves Jihadists. Journalists, writers call them by their self described names.

So, if the software here allowed it, and someone started to comment here as “Swisscheese”, posting things you don’t agree with, you’d be okay with that?

If someone started a news website, The Intercept, and had views that go against this The Intercept, would this The Intercept be okay with that?

If someone offered a beverage and called it, Coca Cola, would the real Coca Cola be okay with it?

Or, how about, if someone set up a terrorist organization in Mexico, and called it The Vatican, would the real Vatican and the journalists be okay with that? Would they refer to it as The Vatican?

Or, how about if someone started a religion called, Christianity, and had a doctrine that is just the opposite of the real Christianity, would the journalists refer to them as Christianity, and the adherents as “The Christians”, or would they be more careful and refer to them as “People who call themselves Christians but are not really Christians”?

Do you see my point?

At the very least, the TI writers, should add a footnote when they use the terms, Jihadists/Jihadism, clarifying what I have stated here often.

Look, our religion has been hijacked, or at least this is what we are told over and over again. We are then asked repeatedly to take it back, and one of the ways is to take back these terms.

So, as I stated before, if even the TI writers will not help us and will continue to use these terms that do in fact distort Islam, then there is no hope.

I will wait a couple of days if anyone from TI comments on my request to not use these terms.

“if the software here allowed it, and someone started to comment here as “Swisscheese”, posting things you don’t agree with, you’d be okay with that?”

My nickname is not registered. I would just say it is not me and change my nickname.

“If someone started a news website, The Intercept, and had views that go against this The Intercept, would this The Intercept be okay with that?”

News Websites are usually registered in order to prevent such problems.

“If someone offered a beverage and called it, Coca Cola, would the real Coca Cola be okay with it?”

Coca Cola is a registered brand name in than 100 countries. It would be illegal to do so.

“Or, how about, if someone set up a terrorist organization in Mexico, and called it The Vatican, would the real Vatican and the journalists be okay with that? Would they refer to it as The Vatican?”

Yes, the journalist would refer to it as The Vatican. A country name is registered in the UN. You can call your private organizatiob Italy, Iraq or even Vatican if you wish. I saw a dry cleaning business in Bolivia called Vatican dry cleaning.

“Or, how about if someone started a religion called, Christianity, and had a doctrine that is just the opposite of the real Christianity, would the journalists refer to them as Christianity, and the adherents as “The Christians”, or would they be more careful and refer to them as “People who call themselves Christians but are not really Christians”?”

Yes, the journalists should call them Christians. Whether or not they “are not really Christians” is a completely different debate. Journalists and diplomats call North Korea the DEMOCRATIC People Republic of North Korea. However, in different debates most diplomats and journalists made it clear they do not believe North Korea is democratic.

“Do you see my point?”

I see your concern, but I do not believe journalists should change my name, organizations name, or countries name. Whether Western education is bad as Boko Haram promotes is a completely different debate.

“So, as I stated before, if even the TI writers will not help us and will continue to use these terms that do in fact distort Islam, then there is no hope.”

I don’t think fighting TI writers will get your religion back. Attacking those who call priests rapists would not change the perception that the Catholic leadership does not want to fight sexual crimes. One needs to attack the Vatican leadership to change that perception. You need to attack those who use violence in the name of Islam to get your religion back whatever that means.

I tend to refer those who kill as criminals. Pretty general but, in my small mind, it allows me to lump “jihadists” and warmongering Americans in the same space and help me keep straight as to who is bad and who is good.

When one country invades another, it becomes messy. The last time the US was invaded was many moons ago (of course there is the matter of the possibly successful coup of the US in the last election but that would seem to be off topic).

What amazes me is how religions based on the same god and events end up fighting each other, which leads me to believe that religions are the framework upon which human vices are overlaid, much like television shows provide the framework for commercials.

“What amazes me is how religions based on the same god and events end up fighting each other…”

—–

It has to do with the human self.

The more it reflects the lower qualities, such as hatred, anger, arrogance, seeing otherness, lust for power and control, sense of righteousness and exclusive-ness, self-pride, etc., the less it’ll be at peace and will seek conflict.

Well that ‘jihad’ term avoids any need by the author to go into the specific details of how various violent groups were founded, armed and supported. If one were to insist on details about groups such as ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, the Muslim Brotherhood etc. then the author would have to discuss the difference between Hezbollah and Iran vs. ISIS and Saudi Arabia vs. the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt vs. Boko Haram and Nigeria. This opens up a can of worms for any advocate of the neoliberal consensus agenda.

Consider: These organizations view themselves as political entities whose terrorist activities are aimed at supporting their political agendas. In the regions they are active, they draw support from both local populations who are democratically disenfranchised or oppressed as well as from external powers with geopolitical agendas who view them as useful idiots who, once they’ve played their role (as in Afghanistan in the 1980s) can then be dismantled, ignored, forgotten about. That’s the can of worms that gets opened once the discussion becomes detailed.

This of course is a topic that someone like Sageman, who played a role in sponsoring such games in the past, is reluctant to discuss – but clearly, the rise of ISIS in Syria as part of the overthrow Assad game, and all the associated consequences, was something the US and Saudi Arabia and Israel tacitly and covertly and even overtly supported and encouraged after the Arab Spring broke out. Violent religious extremism is a tool that the House of Saudi has used for decades to maintain its grip on power, with U.S. support – the religious police state at home and violent terrorism abroad.

Yes, Iran’s system is fairly similar, absent the US support. Take Hezbollah and Iran in southern Lebanon, which Iran justifies as supporting the local Shia population against Israeli incursions and slaughter of the kind Israel has often perpetrated there. Israel’s officials have in turn stated they’d rather see ISIS take over Syria than have Assad remain in power because they hate the Shia Muslims in Iran. How many frothing lunatics does it take to keep this going?

The conclusion of such a discussion is obvious if we want to claim that “humanitarian values” and “democratic reforms” are our agenda in the region, that being this: we have no allies there, not Saudi Arabia, not Israel, not Qatar, nor Iran. The only country that looks at all democratic and capable of working out cultural/political conflicts is actually Lebanon, where the Druze and Shia and secular groups have managed to create a relatively peaceful state of affairs.

What’s really problematic about this article is that “we’re all Americans” line – so does this justify treating all other human beings on earth as our inferiors, who don’t deserve the rights and privileges we enjoy? That’s creepy in the extreme, that’s some fascist ubermensch crap out of Nazi Germany.

A good way to explain the issue to a Western person is to ask them to consider the word ‘defender’. ‘Defender’ is a general term, with a meaning that’s only really specified by context. If there was a group of people who were committing atrocities with the supposed justification that they were defending something, they might well call themselves ‘defenders’ – but that would hardly mean that they defined the term, or that it was actually appropriate, for that matter. Referring to them as ‘defenders’ when talking about them would just gratify their ideology and play into their propaganda.

“The TI writers can use these six words at the beginning of an article like this and then use the acronym TWCM.”

You are asking those journalists to give their opinion about a religion. Firstly, they do not have to. Whether you are a “real” Muslim as opposed to Al Qaeda members is a completely different debate. Secondly, there are many articles in which journalists give their opinion exclusively. At TI it can be seen through writers’ opinions that they do make a difference between Muslim terrorists and peaceful Muslims.